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      On the Quiet Hardcourts in Spain, Carlos Alcaraz’s Star Was Already Shining

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      No matter how clear the potential, you never truly know what a tennis player is capable of until they have to fight for the biggest points on the biggest occasions.In December, when I visited Carlos Alcaraz and his coach, Juan Carlos Ferrero, at the academy where they are based in the stark countryside of Villena, Spain, both calmly and reasonably explained that the goal for 2022 was to break into the top 15.So much for calm and reason.On Sunday, Alcaraz became a Grand Slam champion by winning the men’s singles title at the U.S. Open and, at 19, the youngest No. 1 player since the ATP rankings were created nearly 50 years ago.In December, Alcaraz trained on a hardcourt with Ferrero near the back of the academy grounds with just a few people observing as they picked up their own balls amid the peace and quiet.So much for peace and quiet.Sunday’s four-set victory over Casper Ruud of Norway was secured in a sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium with the roars of nearly 24,000 fans rumbling off the closed retractable roof as Alcaraz lunged and leaped straight into the winner’s circle and the collective consciousness.To be honest, a star was already born.Alcaraz ticked that big box quite some time ago when he upset the likes of Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal this season on his acrobatic, gravity-defying way to trophies on tour and early acclaim. He sensed after winning the Miami Open final over Ruud in early April that Grand Slam titles were within his reach.But no matter how clear the potential and how dynamic the game, you never truly know what a tennis player is capable of until they have to fight for the biggest points on the biggest occasions.Sunday was one of those moments, and now he and we know for certain that Alcaraz is the mega-talent that men’s tennis was anxiously hoping would surface with the Big Three — Nadal, Djokovic and Roger Federer — riding toward the fading light.“It’s crazy for me,” he said on Sunday night. “I never thought I was going to achieve something like this at 19 years old. Everything came so fast.”Alcaraz, as truly exceptional players do, has arrived at some of the usual way stations on the road to success and stepped on the accelerator pedal instead of pulling over.Pete Sampras was also 19 when he rode his supreme serve and running forehand to win the 1990 U.S. Open men’s singles title. Nadal, Alcaraz’s fellow Spaniard, was 19, too, when he arrived at his first French Open in 2005 and ran the table against his elders without even being pushed to a fifth set.Alcaraz found a way to attack when threatened rather than playing the waiting game.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesAlcaraz now belongs in the same paragraph even if he never made it look remotely that easy in New York. He had to save a match point against Jannik Sinner of Italy in the quarterfinals. That was part of him winning three five-set matches in a row that finished near midnight or well after and kept him from going to sleep until much of the city was starting to wake up.And all that was just to reach the final, where a letdown would have been entirely understandable. But Alcaraz was having none of it, even if there were some moments in the second and third sets where his energy levels seemed to dip and his full-cut groundstrokes lacked some of their customary punch.But as champions do, he found a way, and as not all champions do, he did so by attacking when threatened rather than playing the waiting game.Serving in the 12th game of the third set, he saved one set point by approaching the net and hitting a deft angled forehand volley winner. He saved the next by serving and volleying and finishing off the point with an overhead shot. He won the game with a lunging backhand lob that sent Ruud scrambling back to the baseline, where he hit a tweener that Alcaraz, back at the net, punched away to force a tiebreaker with the crowd giving him nothing but positive feedback.There is no need to bury the Big Three just yet.Federer’s glory days are very likely done at age 41, and he has not played in more than a year. But Nadal, at 36, won two major titles this year and has had a marvelous, reaffirming season. Djokovic just won Wimbledon and, despite being unvaccinated against Covid-19, looks very likely to be granted permission by the Australian government to defend the old guard against Alcaraz and the new wave in January at the Australian Open, which Djokovic has won a record nine times.But Sunday’s final and this U.S. Open as a whole sent a clear message: men’s tennis will have a strong heartbeat long after its long-running icons are gone.This was appointment viewing, too, a day when two hungry young men were chasing their first major title and the No. 1 ranking at the same time.Alcaraz not only won the U.S. Open trophy, he took top spot in the ATP rankings.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThis was a first, and what made it better yet was that this was big-time all-court tennis, brimming with risk and reward as roars of approval and occasional disbelief rumbled through the Thunderdome of Ashe Stadium.Alcaraz, down to earth off the court, is a human highlight reel with a racket in hand: ideally suited to a social-media age where bite-size brilliance is the coin of the realm. But Ruud, less obviously charismatic, showed plenty of panache himself, hunting down drop shots, ripping bold forehand winners, countering Alcaraz’s injections of pace and hustling to keep points and his chances alive.He also showed welcome and remarkable sportsmanship, calling a double bounce on himself in the second set that the chair umpire had missed, thereby awarding the point to Alcaraz, who clearly appreciated the gesture.It was a final played in that sort of Corinthian spirit despite all that was at stake.Ruud was close to turning it, closer than the four-set score line will indicate, but he lost his edge and his rhythm when he needed it most: mistiming shot after shot in the third-set tiebreaker that gave Alcaraz fresh hope and a much clearer view of the finish line.“He has such an incredible fighting spirit,” said Ruud, still searching for his first major title after losing to Nadal in straight sets at this year’s French Open final. Ruud is well placed to note the common thread between the two Spanish champions, born nearly 17 years apart. Alcaraz might have grown up admiring Federer’s flair and net-rushing skills, but like Nadal, he clearly relishes the fight as he proved again and again in New York. He delights not just in having won a match but in the process that leads to winning.“It is what makes Carlos special,” Ferrero said during my visit in December. “Many players like to compete but not so many look forward to playing the biggest points. Carlos does, and I think that is a very good sign for the future.”Ferrero said he sensed some of Alcaraz’s joy was missing earlier this summer at the Masters 1000 tournaments in Montreal and Mason, Ohio. Ferrero was intent on recapturing it and urged him to be true to his attacking instincts, to approach the net off short balls and to use his full range of skills. Mission accomplished. “I came here just to enjoy,” Alcaraz said. “To smile on court and to enjoy playing tennis.”Ferrero, who clinched the No. 1 ranking by reaching the final of the 2003 U.S. Open won by Andy Roddick, remains an unexcitable sort, but even he was struggling to keep his composure down the stretch on Sunday, extending his palms to the team to maintain calm while his strained expression was sending a rather different message.Who could blame him? He sensed something special in Alcaraz when he saw him in his early teens at a low-level professional tournament in Spain: He saw him hit drop shots and rush the net without fear; sensed his ability to adapt his game to the opposition; sensed that he had extra gears on his extra gears.But he also had a long-term view in mind.“Above all, he told me not to be in a hurry,” Alcaraz explained in December. “That I’m going to get the experience and play the tournaments and learn the ropes, and that there’s no need to get ahead of the process. I need to live all these moments and not be in a hurry for the results right away.”So much for not being in a hurry. More

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      Iga Swiatek, U.S. Open Winner, Is Ready for Global Stardom

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      At 21 years old and already a superstar in her home country of Poland, Swiatek is a bona fide No. 1 with a package of tennis skills both innate and acquired.Upon arrival in New York for this year’s U.S. Open, I was delighted to return to a city that is on its way back, as ever, after hard times. But I was surprised to keep hearing questions about women’s tennis’s lack of a dominant player.The farewell tour of Serena Williams, the greatest women’s champion of this era, explained the interest in who might fill the void, but if you’ve been following the women’s game this year, there has been plenty of dominance on display.Doha. Indian Wells. Miami. Stuttgart. Rome. Paris.Iga Swiatek has won titles in all those cities this year, and it should be no surprise to anyone, not even an emotional Swiatek, that she added New York to the long list on Saturday afternoon.Her 6-2, 7-6 (5) victory over Ons Jabeur in Saturday’s U.S. Open women’s final was a reminder of what makes Swiatek such a force:Phenomenal, elastic, sliding defense into the corners, often out of the near-splits popularized by Kim Clijsters and Novak Djokovic.Sprinter’s speed moving forward. (She chased down Jabeur’s signature drop shots on Saturday like a cheetah chasing down a wounded impala.)Heavyweight punching power and penetration off the ground, above all the topspin forehand like Swiatek’s role model Rafael Nadal.Big-match mental strength, which has allowed her to find and maintain her focus under duress with the help of her longtime performance psychologist and friend, Daria Abramowicz. She is now 10-1 in tour-level singles finals.That package of skills, both innate and acquired, has created a genuine champion, and what should be genuinely scary to the opposition is that she can still improve her serve, transition game and volleys by big margins.Her 6-2, 7-6 (5) victory over Ons Jabeur in Saturday’s U.S. Open women’s final was a reminder of what makes Swiatek such a force.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAt just 21 years old, Swiatek is a bona fide No. 1 with a huge lead in the rankings over Jabeur, the engaging and gifted Tunisian who will be back at No. 2 on Monday.Swiatek will have 10,365 points to Jabeur’s 5,090: the kind of clear separation that great players like Williams or Steffi Graf have created in the past. And the last woman to win seven or more singles titles in a season was Williams in 2014.“That was my goal, to get to 10,000 points,” said Tomasz Wiktorowski, Swiatek’s coach who joined her team in December and has been one of the architects of her great season.After winning the French Open by surprise in 2020 and then solidifying her spot in the top 10, Swiatek has taken flight in earnest in 2022, reeling off 37 straight victories earlier this season, often by lopsided Grafian margins, and winning a second French Open and — after a short market correction in July and August — her first U.S. Open.With three majors, she is now closing in on Naomi Osaka, the Japanese star and former No. 1 who has won two U.S. Opens and two Australian Opens, as the most accomplished major champion of their generation.But Swiatek, who is three years younger than the 24-year-old Osaka, already has one significant performance edge. While Osaka has never won a tour-level title on clay or grass, Swiatek is a multisurface threat. Of her seven titles this season, three have come on her long-favored red clay, but four have come on hardcourts like those used at the U.S. Open.“I wasn’t sure if I was on the level yet to win actually a Grand Slam, especially on U.S. Open where the surface is so fast,” she said of hardcourts. “It’s something that I wasn’t expecting, for sure. It’s also like a confirmation for me that sky is the limit.”The sky should include Wimbledon. Though Swiatek has yet to get past the fourth round on the grass at the All England Club, she did win the junior title there in 2018 and has the tool set and improvisational athleticism to win the main event there down the road.In her only match with Osaka this season (and in the past three years), Swiatek rumbled past her, 6-4, 6-0, on Osaka’s best surface in the Miami Open final.Osaka has played little since then and struggled with injuries and her timing when she did play. She is ranked No. 44, and yet she remains by far the most globally prominent young women’s tennis star: the highest-earning female athlete, capable of launching her own management company with her agent Stuart Duguid and signing up other players such as Nick Kyrgios.Her high profile is based on achievement to be certain but also on geography, representing a major market like Japan while based in another major market, the United States. She also has been bold and outspoken on social-justice issues and her own mental-health challenges, positioning herself as one of the voices of an engaged generation.It will be intriguing to see if Swiatek, already a superstar in her home nation of Poland, can break out globally, as well. She is smart and empathetic, likes to read and can crack a joke when she is not cracking a forehand. Handed the $2.6 million champion’s check on Saturday, she said, “I’m really glad it’s not in cash.”Though she said in an interview in May in Paris that she was still trying to sort through the best way to use her new platform, she has demonstrated a new willingness and confidence to speak out since then. She organized an exhibition to raise relief funds for young Ukrainians in July in Poland and is the only leading player not from Ukraine to still wear a blue and yellow ribbon on court to mark her support for Ukraine in the war with Russia.“Society, we don’t have a long memory, but, I mean, lives are at stake so I think we should remind people,” she told me at Wimbledon, which barred players from Russia and its ally Belarus.It will be intriguing to see if Swiatek, already a superstar in her home nation of Poland, can break out globally, as well.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesBut it is her tennis that has spoken the most loudly and eloquently in 2022, and while she swept through the draw to win the French Open, she had to play through stormy weather in New York — coming back to defeat Jule Niemeier and Aryna Sabalenka in three sets — before securing the trophy under clear skies.“For sure, Roland Garros I always feel like I have more control, and I feel like Philippe Chatrier is kind of my place,” she said of the center court in Paris. “Here on Ashe, I still need to figure out the atmosphere. I wasn’t sure before the match if this is actually my place.”There is no doubt that she found her stride in 2022 in a void: rising to the top after the shock exit of Ashleigh Barty, the Australian star who was a firmly entrenched No. 1 when she announced that she was retiring from the game in March at age 25.It was another big blow to the women’s game, which has seen too many stars leave too soon, and Swiatek has expressed regret that she will no longer have the chance to test her power tennis against Barty’s more varied skills. Jabeur has Bartyesque versatility but lacks the Australian’s formidable serve and cannot generate quite the same forceful topspin with her forehand or wicked side-spin when she hits her backhand with one hand.Even during Williams’s quarter century at or near the top, the women’s game often lacked a transcendent rivalry. There has been nothing quite like Graf vs. Monica Seles; certainly nothing like Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova, who was in sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium on Saturday to present the women’s trophy to Swiatek.Swiatek vs. Osaka, or Swiatek vs. Jabeur or Swiatek vs. Coco Gauff all sound like fine ideas for the future. Despite rumors to the contrary, women’s tennis does indeed have a dominant player, one with a long-term plan to stay there. Now it needs other women to rise up consistently to challenge her. More

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      Iga Swiatek Downs Ons Jabeur to Win US Open Women’s Singles Title

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      Swiatek, the world No. 1, beat Jabeur in straight sets to capture her first U.S. Open singles title. It is her third Grand Slam title and first on a surface other than clay.The 2022 U.S. Open will always be remembered — outside of Poland, at least — for its farewell to Serena Williams, long the queen of tennis and the greatest women’s player ever.Beware, though, after Poland’s Iga Swiatek won the women’s singles title Saturday, beating Ons Jabeur of Tunisia Saturday afternoon at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the sport may have a new ruler on its hands.Swiatek, the world No. 1, lived up to her billing and beat Jabeur, 6-2, 7-6(5), to capture her first U.S. Open singles title. It was the third Grand Slam title of Swiatek’s brief career and her first on a surface other than clay.When Jabeur’s last forehand sailed long, Swiatek collapsed on her back after a 1 hour, 51 minute duel that got dangerously close as the afternoon wore on. After a first set that was over in 30 minutes, Swiatek and Jabeur took 81 minutes to finish the second as Jabeur battled back from a service break down twice to get the set into a tiebreaker before Swiatek ultimately prevailed.Swiatek, 21, won the French Open in 2020 and 2022, becoming the first Polish woman to win a Grand Slam singles title. And now she is the first Polish woman to win three and the U.S. Open, where she was the first Polish woman to make the singles final.How young is this new tennis queen? She is Gen-Z to the core. After the extended congratulatory hug with Jabeur, and a little bit of celebrating, she took a seat in her chair, pulled her phone from her bag and texted away as she awaited the trophy ceremony For Swiatek, the victory was the latest success in a season full of them. She won 37 consecutive matches and six consecutive titles from late winter to early summer. Those victories included the so-called Sunshine Double — winning both the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif., and the Miami Open in March and April.Those wins, on hard courts similar to those at the U.S. Open, announced Swiatek as a force on courts other than clay, on which she was already dominant. She has won so many 6-0 sets this year — a “bagel” in tennis parlance — that the saying “Iga’s bakery” was coined.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesSwiatek’s surge to the top came at an opportune time. In March, Ashleigh Barty of Australia, a three-time Grand Slam singles champion and the world No. 1, abruptly retired at 25 years old, saying she had accomplished all she wanted in the sport and was ready for a new challenge.In her departure, Barty, then the reigning Wimbledon and Australian Open champion, left a significant void in women’s tennis, which has largely been a free-for-all in recent years.No woman has won more than two Grand Slam titles in a calendar year since Williams won three in 2015. Since late 2020, Swiatek has done all she can to bring some order to women’s tennis, winning three of the past 10 Grand Slam titles.Beyond her dominance on the court, Swiatek has assumed a leadership role off it. She has spoken out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine more than any player who is not from Ukraine and has helped raise more than $2 million for relief efforts through her participation in tennis exhibitions, one of which she organized herself.“We’re trying to do our best to be good people,” she said during the trophy ceremony, as red-and-white Polish flags swung throughout the stands.On a lighter note, she was also among the players this summer who led an outcry over the balls that women use at the U.S. Open, which are different from those that men play with.From the start, all the signs pointed to this being Swiatek’s afternoon. During the warm-up, the sound system blasted AC/DC, one of her favorite bands. (Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin also have a major presence on her playlist.)Once the balls started flying, Swiatek gave little reason for anyone to believe that this match would go any differently from so many finals before. Coming in, Swiatek had played in 10 career finals. She has not lost one since her first, way back in 2019. Even more remarkably, she has not lost a set in any of those wins.“Iga never loses finals, so it is going to be very tough,” Jabeur said Thursday night, as Swiatek staged her second comeback in this tournament from a set down in her semifinal battle against Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus, a player she was especially determined not to lose to for a variety of reasons.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAgainst Jabeur on Saturday, Swiatek ambushed from the start. She won 12 of the first 14 points, sprinting to a 3-0 lead. Jabeur climbed back, getting back on serve as Swiatek momentarily lost control of her overpowering forehand. But then Swiatek went right back to business, with a style that has become more clinical than fancy.With Jabeur putting up so little resistance, she didn’t need to do much more than hit deep into the court. Eventually, Jabeur either made an error or landed a shot somewhere around the service line, allowing Swiatek to move in and blast away. The first set was over in 30 minutes.The queens of women’s tennis historically have done this sort of thing.Jabeur, the first Arab woman to reach a Grand Slam final in the Open Era and to reach the highest level of the sport, has arguably the most creative arsenal in the women’s game. When she is on, she can mix jumping backhand drop shots with a dangerous forehand and a deceptively hard serve that she can land in the corners with nasty movement.She reached the Wimbledon final earlier this summer and held a one-set lead before tightening and getting overpowered by Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan. Ahead of Saturday, she spoke of the lessons she had learned from that match and how she now knew ways to keep her emotions in check.But with Swiatek in top form, there was little that Jabeur, who has become an inspiration for Arab women, could do to stop the locomotive.“We’re going to get that title sometime soon,” she said after losing her second Grand Slam final of the year. “Hopefully this is the beginning of so many things.”The second set followed a similar pattern to the first at the beginning, with Swiatek surging to a 3-0 lead, Jabeur getting back on serve, and then Swiatek, seizing control right back in the sixth game to get within two games of the championshipFrom there, the only question was whether Swiatek’s occasionally shaky psyche might get the better of her or whether a crowd that swung to Jabeur’s side, begging her to extend the afternoon and make their high-price tickets worthwhile, might be able to rattle her.A few random knuckleheads started whistling in the middle of Swiatek’s service motion. A baby cried. Jabeur abandoned the cute stuff. No more variety for variety’s sake. She tried to match Swiatek’s power from the baseline. It worked as she evened the set at four games each.Ons Jabeur was overpowered early in the match but found her game in the second set.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesSwiatek is so different, though, from the fragile player who won her first Grand Slam title as a teenager. She has evolved from a player who cried in the bathroom during toilet breaks in the middle of matches into a problem solver.That player might never have had a prayer of prevailing in New York, where all the noise and commotion — passing trains and planes, fans who feel they have the right to long raucous matches and to help determine the outcome — make winning here such a different task from anywhere else.“It’s New York, so loud, so crazy,” she would say later of both her past two weeks and this match.Just keeping the ball in play was no longer working. Jabeur was sending her back and forth across the baseline and held chances to break Swiatek’s serve in the next game and serve for the second set. And just then, Swiatek figured out how to calm her nerves and dial back the mistakes. It wasn’t pretty, but it solved the problem, or at least stopped too many more from happening.Jabeur would stretch Swiatek, getting as close as anyone has in a Grand Slam final to winning a set. But in the tiebreaker, strokes that had become smooth and steady started sailing. On their final point, Swiatek’s first serve was not even close, and she lobbed in her second ball. The forehand Swiatek hit off Jabeur’s return floated into the middle of the court, but Jabeur couldn’t take advantage of it, and the championship was hers. There should be many, many more. More

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      Carlos Alcaraz Is Favorite Against Casper Ruud in U.S. Open Men’s Singles Final

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      Sunday’s match is not only a battle for the U.S. Open men’s singles title. It will also determine the next world No. 1, and whoever wins will rise to the top spot for the first time.It was nearly 2 a.m. at the U.S. Open (of course it was), and Carlos Alcaraz was cheerfully giving a news conference after his latest five-set thriller.“Sometimes you have to come up with a little magic, you know?” he said.We do know, and though we might not have been 100 percent certain before Alcaraz returned to New York for his second U.S. Open, the evidence is overwhelming now after his bewitching run to the men’s singles final, in which he will face Casper Ruud on Sunday.Alcaraz, just 19, has made the spectacular rally and the acrobatic shot seem routine under extraordinary pressure. He has done it with the crowd of nearly 24,000 in Arthur Ashe Stadium supporting him, saving a match point against Jannik Sinner in the quarterfinals. He has worked the same kind of magic with a majority of the crowd against him, as it was on Friday night when he played Frances Tiafoe.But even Tiafoe, an American in the midst of a breakthrough of his own, was left either wide-eyed or covering his mouth in disbelief at some of the winners that Alcaraz conjured on the run. Alcaraz is at his most dangerous and entertaining when he is on the scramble.Against Sinner in the quarterfinals, he hit a behind-the-back shot in midair and went on to win the point. Against Tiafoe in the semifinals, Alcaraz came up with lunging angles, forehand passing shots off balls that seemed already out of reach, and produced topspin lobs from deeply compromised positions that landed beyond Tiafoe’s reach directly on the baseline.“Obviously I would have loved to win tonight, but I think tennis won tonight,” Tiafoe said after drying his eyes and putting the transcendent tournament and often marvelous match in perspective.Alcaraz has played three five-setters in a row.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesBut the tennis is not quite finished, and Alcaraz has not yet taken the final step in his journey from Spanish prodigy to Grand Slam champion.One more match awaits, and the final against Ruud, a 23-year-old Norwegian, will not only be a duel for the U.S. Open title. It will also be a match for the No. 1 ranking.Whoever wins will rise to the top spot for the first time: an unprecedented scenario in a major final since the ATP computer rankings were created in 1973.An Alcaraz loss to Tiafoe would have guaranteed Ruud the No. 1 ranking, even without taking the title, but Ruud said he preferred it this way, calling it “the ideal situation” and “what’s most fair.”It certainly adds an extra layer of import to the occasion.“I always dreamed of being No. 1,” Alcaraz said. “Obviously to be No. 1 without winning a Slam is complicated to do, but since I was little, it was always No. 1.”Now, he has a chance to achieve both on Sunday. It might seem premature that Alcaraz or Ruud reach the summit considering Rafael Nadal won the first two majors of the year and Novak Djokovic won Wimbledon. But Nadal and Djokovic have missed big chunks of this season (and Nadal missed the last few months of 2021 as well).Djokovic got no ranking points for his Wimbledon victory after points were stripped from the tournament because of its ban on Russian and Belarusian players. Djokovic was also unable to play in the Australian Open, the U.S. Open or four Masters 1000 events in North America because he remained unvaccinated for Covid-19. In the meantime, Alexander Zverev, a German contender for the top spot, has not played on tour since tearing ankle ligaments in the semifinals of the French Open in June.But that is hardly the fourth-ranked Alcaraz’s or seventh-ranked Ruud’s doing. They have been durable and consistently successful (they are also both vaccinated).Ruud is the first Norwegian man to reach a U.S. Open singles final. Alcaraz is the youngest man to reach a Grand Slam singles final since Nadal at the French Open in 2005, and he is also the youngest man to reach a U.S. Open singles final since Pete Sampras in 1990. Nadal and Sampras both won the titles at age 19.Fans watching as Ruud defeated Khachanov in the semifinal Friday.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAlcaraz deserves to be the favorite on Sunday even if Ruud has the edge in experience. Ruud has already played one major final, losing the French Open final in June in straight sets as Nadal claimed his 14th singles title at Roland Garros (which still makes me shake my head).“He obviously gave me a good beating,” Ruud said. “After the final, I said if I ever reach one again, I hope it’s not Rafa on the other side of the court in Roland Garros, because it’s sort of an impossible task, I think, for any player. I’m happy that it’s not Rafa on clay.”But Alcaraz is no walk in Central Park. Like many Spaniards, he learned the game on clay, but the hardcourt looks like his best surface. Alcaraz likes to take big cuts and hit the ball very early, and the true bounce of a hardcourt allows him more precision. It also suits his movement, allowing him to push off and change direction in a flash.“I never played a guy who moves as well as him,” said the 24-year-old Tiafoe, who is also one of the quickest players on tour.Alcaraz’s ability to extend rallies puts tremendous pressure on the opposition to try to play closer to the lines, which lured Tiafoe into errors on Friday, as it had lured many before him.Ruud, the son of the former ATP professional Christian Ruud, knows the perils. He is 0-2 against Alcaraz and lost to him, 7-5, 6-4, in the final of the Miami Open on a hardcourt in April.“If I want to beat Carlos, I’ll need to play very precise with all the shots that I hit and especially try to keep him a little bit further back in the court, to play with good depth and length on all my shots,” Ruud said. “If he steps in, he can do anything with the ball. He can rip a winner. He also has great touch with the drop shot. I think he has one of the best drop shots on tour.”Consistent depth might limit the drop shots, but mere depth does not keep Alcaraz from ripping groundstroke winners. He will punish a shot that lacks punch or slice crisp enough to skid low.But Ruud is a smooth and increasingly complete player with a devastating forehand of his own and an improving serve. Unlike Alcaraz, he has played just one five-setter in this U.S. Open.Ruud has already played one major final, losing at the French Open in June.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesAlcaraz has played three five-setters in a row, all of which finished late or ridiculously late. He beat Marin Cilic, the 2014 U.S. Open champion, at 2:23 a.m. on Tuesday; he beat Sinner at 2:50 a.m. on Thursday in what was the latest finish ever at the U.S. Open; and he then beat Tiafoe shortly before midnight on Friday.Alcaraz, in only his second full season on tour, is now 8-1 in five-set matches and 5-0 at Flushing Meadows.Though he showed no signs of slowing down on Friday night, he has played significantly more tennis in New York this year than Ruud.He has also played more highlight-reel tennis than anybody else, even the departed Australian Nick Kyrgios, and with a positive energy and sportsmanlike attitude that make him a much less conflicted viewing experience than Kyrgios.Alcaraz and Ruud, who has also trained in Spain, are on friendly terms, and it would be quite a shock if their final were anything but family fare.“It makes me happy to transmit good values to the young,” Alcaraz said.A Spanish reporter pointed out that Alcaraz was still rather young himself.“In tennis, you can mature quickly,” he said. “At tournaments, perhaps I feel a bit older, with more responsibilities, let’s say. But once I’m at home with my family, my friends and the people I have known since I was little, I feel like a 19-year-old kid.”However he feels in New York, if he wins on Sunday, Alcaraz will be the youngest No. 1 in ATP history. More

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      Carlos Alcaraz Outlasts Frances Tiafoe to Reach the US Open Final

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      Nearly every year now, it seems, the U.S. Open becomes a life-changing event.Last year a British teenager, a few months removed from her high school graduation, showed up in New York for the qualifying tournament in late August. Three weeks later, Emma Raducanu left the city as a Grand Slam champion and global sensation.This time around, Frances Tiafoe, an electric 24-year-old who has long been filled with unrealized upside, took the journey from virtual unknown to a player who could draw the former first lady Michelle Obama and the actor Jamie Foxx out to watch him.Tiafoe brought his remarkable story: He is the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone, his father a maintenance worker at a local tennis center, where coaches discovered his little boy hitting balls against a wall. Now Tiafoe was bidding to become the first American man since Andy Roddick to make the U.S. Open final. Already he was the first American man to make the semifinals of this tournament in 16 years.Another two wins would have been ground-shifting for the sport in America, akin to Serena Williams’s first Grand Slam title at this tournament 23 years ago, and coming a little more than a week after Williams played what was likely her last match in Arthur Ashe Stadium, in front of a screaming throng of nearly 24,000 fans.“I wanted to be here on Sunday holding the cup,” Tiafoe said. “I had it in my head.”But Tiafoe ran into Carlos Alcaraz on Friday night, the 19-year-old sensation from Spain who now seems poised to be the one to have his life changed by the U.S. Open. Alcaraz, who somehow found enough reserves to come back after winning a quarterfinal match that lasted more than five hours and didn’t end until nearly 3 a.m. Thursday, proved to be too much for Tiafoe, prevailing in five sets, 6-7 (6), 6-3, 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-3.“Amazing to be able to fight for big things,” Alcaraz said.Alcaraz, 19, chased down balls in every corner.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesFrances Tiafoe, 24, matched Alcaraz’s power.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesIt took nearly everything Alcaraz had. He had played roughly 10 hours of tennis in his previous two matches, which included 10 grueling sets. Alcaraz skipped practice altogether Thursday, and hit for just 30 minutes before the match Friday.Whatever psychic and physical energy that saved, he needed all of it for a battle that had him down, then even, then coasting, then clawed back by an opponent desperate not to cede the stage. Then in the last set he was up once more, and then all even again.The crowd rode every wave, with the match sounding like a New York Rangers hockey game as fans bellowed “Let’s go, Tiafoe!” — and then shifting to something like a soccer match in Madrid, as choruses of “Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé” rang through the stands, only to turn back into a Rangers game again.When it was finally finished, just before midnight, 4 hours 18 minutes after it began, Alcaraz had become the first teenage man to reach a Grand Slam final since Rafael Nadal won his first French Open in 2005. That was the first of 22 Nadal has captured in his career. If Alcaraz beats Casper Ruud of Norway on Sunday, he will rise to No. 1 in the world rankings, and who knows how many more Grand Slams he will win.He finished off Tiafoe with a magical lob to get to triple match point, and he needed all three, with Tiafoe finally netting one last backhand. Tiafoe and Alcaraz hugged in the middle of the court, and when they separated, Alcaraz pointed at Tiafoe, urging the fans to let him hear them one last time.“I gave it everything I had,” Tiafoe said, before telling Alcaraz what a privilege it had been to share this stage with him. Then he pledged to come back and beat him here one day and win this thing. He pointed to the former first lady on the way out.Tiafoe got off to a shaky start, missing early on his dangerous first serve and lofting his second serve as slowly as 75 miles per hour.Fortunately for Tiafoe, he was facing an opponent who looked like he had barely rested after his marathon quarterfinal match. Alcaraz struggled to find his rhythm early on and couldn’t take advantage of Tiafoe’s nerves.Slowly, both players settled in. After a half-hour, they were doing what they do best. Tiafoe banged away with his serve and met every bit of Alcaraz’s power. Alcaraz began to chase down balls that most players would not bother with, but when he arrived he was rarely in position to do much with them. Tiafoe got his first chance to win the set while leading 6-5, with Alcaraz serving, and then earned four more chances when the set moved to a tiebreaker.Tiafoe won two tiebreakers, bringing his tiebreaker record to 8-0 this tournament.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesOn the fifth set point, Alcaraz finally cracked, double-faulting. Tiafoe started for his chair, then paused to look at the fans and soak in the love they were giving him. As he got to his chair, he glanced up at himself on the big screen at the top of the stadium and nodded.Tiafoe had just won his 16th set out of 17 he had played in the tournament. Facing an opponent running on fumes who had just played for more than an hour and had nothing to show for it, he had every reason to believe his journey had a long way to go.Alcaraz, though, is different than anyone Tiafoe had faced during the first 10 days of the tournament, even last Monday, when he became the first American born after 1989 to beat Nadal in a Grand Slam. Nadal had played little since tearing an abdominal muscle at Wimbledon and could not summon his usual power and stamina.From the start, so many of Alcaraz’s balls found the outside edges of the sidelines and the back of the baseline, leaving Tiafoe wondering if the electronic line-calling machine could possibly be right. Like a pitcher with late movement on his fastball, Alcaraz hit shots that looked like they would sail wide and long but suddenly darted into a corner.Balls that don’t come back against other players come back when Alcaraz is on the other side of the net. There is not an inch of the court that seems out of his reach. No point is finished until a ball has bounced twice or has crashed into the back wall. He hits searing winners while running away from the net. A twist of his hips, a flick of his wrist, and the ball is sailing past.If Tiafoe’s story is all about kismet, Alcaraz’s has seemed preordained. His grandfather owns a tennis club and he has long trained with the former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero.Tiafoe stayed even with Alcaraz through the first five games of the second set, but trouble arrived when he was serving at 2-3. That’s when Alcaraz showed that if he can stay healthy, he could have a career as good as anyone who has ever played the game.Alcaraz executed several perfect lobs during the match.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesHe earned his chance to break Tiafoe’s serve for the first time all night, running down a ball deep in the backhand corner and catching up with a drop shot close to the net. With a chance to put away the point, Tiafoe sent it long, then did it once more on the next point.Tiafoe would have chances to get back into the set twice more, but Alcaraz shut the door both times, the first by mixing slices and topspin through a long rally, the second with a serve Tiafoe could not get back. By the end of the set, Tiafoe was showing his first signs of frustration, swatting his racket at the air, as though he knew what was about to come.What came next was ugly. The first two sets had lasted 109 minutes. The third one was over in 33. Alcaraz came out on fire, and Tiafoe came out as a shadow of the player he was in the first set when he grabbed the early lead.Alcaraz won 12 of the first 13 points, building a 3-0 lead and breaking Tiafoe’s serve three times as he rolled to a two-sets-to-one advantage.By the end of the set, Tiafoe looked lost, double-faulting, committing error after error, unable to get his feet behind the ball and set up to swing. Alcaraz beat him every which way, pushing him deep into the backcourt, then drawing him up to the net and passing him, as he seized control of a match that seemed like it would be over very soon.But then Tiafoe became someone Alcaraz had not yet faced — a hometown favorite with more than 20,000 friends ready to help him climb back from the brink.And he did, pulling even at 3-3 and saving a match point at 4-5 by chasing down a drop shot that had the former first lady up out of her seat and urging him on.He did as he was told, pushing the set to a tiebreaker, where he cranked up his serve and finally got Alcaraz to make enough mistakes to force the deciding set. Tiafoe’s performance in tiebreakers, which had been 6-0 at the start of the night, was now 8-0, a record at the U.S. Open.His eyes wide, he nodded up at those thousands of new buddies he had made. This journey was nearly over, but not quite yet.Maybe, though, it’s part of a much larger journey that Tiafoe is on. He has already come so far.Alcaraz will face Casper Ruud in the final on Sunday.Karsten Moran for The New York Times More

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      Looking for More Frances Tiafoes

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      It is impossible to quantify how many young Black girls have signed up for tennis lessons since the late 1990s when Serena and Venus Williams burst onto the scene under the guidance of their father, Richard Williams, or how many parents of athletic Black girls living in America, tried to follow his blueprint and repeat the Williams’s success.The number is surely significant, though — enough that despite significant barriers to entry, two generations of top Black female players, including Sloane Stephens, Taylor Townsend and now Coco Gauff, already a Grand Slam finalist at 18 years old, have emerged.Black American men have not had a Grand Slam champion to look up to since Arthur Ashe in the 1970s, and have had precious few billboard-worthy top Black players to admire. Maybe one day they will have Frances Tiafoe, who is Black and played one of the most compelling matches in U.S. Open history Friday night, coming up just short in the semifinals against Carlos Alcaraz of Spain. Even in the loss, Tiafoe, who is 24 years old, announced himself, last night and all week, as a potentially transformative star.With the riches of far more accessible sports so obvious and ubiquitous, the people trying to make American men’s tennis better and more diverse have had a steep hill to climb to overcome that void that has long existed. Gauff’s younger brother, it’s worth noting, is a teenage baseball prospect.“The little Black kid will always understand which sports star looks like their skin color,” said Alexandra Stevenson, a former pro who grew up playing with the Williams sisters. “It matters.”Tiafoe’s parents are immigrants from Sierra Leone.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesTiafoe has long had a sort of magnetic appeal, especially among people of color. At the 2020 U.S. Open, when no spectators were on the grounds, he played a second-round match against John Millman of Australia on Court 11 that turned into a five-set marathon.As Tiafoe began to climb out of a two-sets-to-one deficit, perhaps 100 maintenance, food and security workers getting off their shifts at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where people of color account for much of the staff, began to fill the empty stands. By the time Tiafoe finished off his comeback win, it was loud on Court 11, louder than any match during that eerily quiet Grand Slam.Tiafoe’s origin story is fast becoming one of the great legends of tennis.An impoverished son of immigrant parents from Sierra Leone discovers tennis and thrives because his father does maintenance at a local tennis center, putting him on the runway to the top of the sport. The story is perfectly positioned to serve as an inspiration to a generation of young Black boys. For the people who make a living searching for someone like Tiafoe, the story is both inspiring and terrifying.They know how easily it could have gone another way, as it has for so many gifted young athletes, many of them Black, many of them poor, who never held a tennis racket until it was too late, if at all. Their physical gifts and dedication had turned them into teenage sensations in basketball or football, or any of the other lucrative athletic pursuits where they have long seen people who look like them at the pinnacle of the sport.Michelle Obama, center, the former first lady of the United States, attended Tiafoe’s semifinals match on Friday.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesBobblehead dolls of Tiafoe were set out for a U.S. Open watch party in College Park, Md.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIf Tiafoe’s father had worked in an office park instead of a tennis center, would the boy with all that speed and strength instead be suiting up for his N.F.L. team’s opening game Sunday? Would he be using his hands that maneuver a 10-ounce piece of carbon fiber just so to make a fuzzy yellow ball behave exactly how he wants it to?“Finding that kid who has the athleticism and is a great competitor, and also has the sound foundation you need to have the opportunity to be able to grow, it isn’t easy to get them,” said Kent Kinnear, the director of men’s tennis at the U.S. Tennis Association.Kinnear and his colleagues at the U.S.T.A. are desperate to reap the rewards of an American man of any background winning a Grand Slam singles title for the first time since Andy Roddick won the U.S. Open in 2003. Private tennis coaches look across the parks where they work each day and see the ones that got away.“John McEnroe always said, ‘Can you imagine if Michael Jordan had played tennis?’,” said Bill Adams, who runs the Bill Adams Global Tennis Academy in Miramar, Fla., and worked with a young Naomi Osaka, who is Haitian and Japanese and identifies as a Black woman, a dozen years ago. “He was right.”Sports like tennis and golf are often less accessible to Black children because of the high costs of training and equipment, and because the facilities to practice often aren’t available in the communities where Black children are most likely to live. Black families typically have less wealth than white families because of a history of racist policies related to assets like housing.The U.S.T.A. has tried to set up a system that gives tennis a better chance to attract better athletes and more of them, especially from communities of color. That requires courts and also programs with equipment and high-quality coaching.“So many of the success stories in our sport are happenstance,” said Louis Bolling, a former college player who is a community outreach manager with the U.S.T.A. “I was able to walk down the street, and someone was there to say here is a racket and T-shirt and a program where you can compete and learn.”In Bolling’s program, the color of the T-shirt signified a player’s level. They got a new color as they moved up. Hundreds of kids across Philadelphia participated, and the best traveled across the city for tournaments. Bolling, who is Black, started playing tennis when he was 10 years old because his local baseball league folded, he said. By 15 he was traveling to Morocco to train and compete.Tennis officials wants children to keep playing other sports to help develop their athleticism, but a singular focus on tennis is often required by the early teens.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThat is the environment that Asha Rolle is trying to create in the South Bronx at the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis and Learning. Rolle, who is Black, grew up in Miami Shores, Fla., two blocks from a park with a tennis set of basketball courts where her brothers played. They told her about the tennis program behind the basketball courts and suggested she try it. Rolle received daily lessons for $20 a week. She ultimately rose to No. 82 in the world rankings. But she doesn’t just want brothers sending their sisters to her — she wants the boys to feel like they should be there, too.“That kind of program is out there, but it’s spotty,” Rolle said.The U.S.T.A. said it works with 250 nonprofit organizations that provide access to tennis for about 160,000 young players each year. The numbers suggest more children are at least giving the sport a try. The U.S.T.A. recently announced that youth participation — defined as playing the sport at least once a year — rose to 6.9 million in 2021, from 4.6 million in 2019. Participation among Black and Hispanic/Latino players grew to 5.5 million from 3.6 million during that time period.Most top players commit when they are very young. Rolle said a boy would probably have to start playing seriously, with solid coaching, by the time he is 8 years old. The U.S.T.A. wants children to keep playing other sports to help develop their athleticism, but a singular focus on the game is often required by the early teens. But coaching techniques and quality varies.Elliott Pettit, senior director of strategic development for the U.S.T.A., said the organization has tried to build a ladder that begins in elementary school by making tennis part of gym class. If a gym teacher agrees to connect with a local community tennis program, the school can receive a free package of equipment for an introductory version of the game — 30 rackets, 36 instructional balls, tape to use as the net and chalk for lines. It can be played in gyms, school hallways and cafeterias.Students at Tiafoe’s home club in Maryland reacted as he played in the U.S. Open on Wednesday.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesDuring the past five years 6,700 schools have participated. In the best case scenario, the gym teacher would point the best and most enthusiastic children to the community tennis center, which then can let the U.S.T.A. regional chapters know about any special talents so they can fund private coaching.But what will make that talented child stick with the sport in a serious way? A star like Tiafoe, if he wins, can go a long way, a burden he is happy to carry.“At the end of the day I love that because of Frances Tiafoe there is a lot of people of color playing tennis,” Tiafoe said Wednesday. “That’s why I’m out here trying pretty hard.” More

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      US Open Women’s Final: Iga Swiatek vs. Ons Jabeur

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      Swiatek will look to affirm her place as the top-ranked player, while Jabeur could become the first African woman to win the U.S. Open.Ons Jabeur of Tunisia also made it to the final at Wimbledon this year.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesIga Swiatek of Poland, the No.1-ranked woman, won 37 straight matches over the winter and spring.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesListening to the two women’s finalists in the U.S. Open, it can be easy to forget that tennis is a sport that involves strength, speed, athletic skill and some strategy.To Iga Swiatek, the world No. 1 from Poland, and Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, now a two-time Grand Slam finalist, the game is almost entirely a mental test.Yes, there is an opponent on the other side of the net trying to hit the ball past you. But the real opponent is the one inside your head, the one trying to remind you of the recent run of bad form, or the balls that you’ve had trouble controlling, or the heartbreaking loss you suffered the last time you played in a Grand Slam final.A little more than an hour after Swiatek, 21, outdueled Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus in three sets on Thursday, she reflected on what had made the difference. Sabalenka had overpowered Swiatek in the first set, but Swiatek drew even, then climbed out of trouble in the third set to win the final four games.The key, she said, was not the string of winners she decorated the court with, or an extra burst of energy from a summer training block. It was being able to control her emotions and not panic.“The work we’ve put in with Daria for sure helped,” she said, referring to the sports psychologist Daria Abramowicz, who has helped her find the tools to calm her nerves. “I think that’s basically the most important thing on the highest level.”Jabeur, a 28-year-old veteran whose game has only recently reached the level where she can regularly compete for the most important championships, constantly has her sports psychologist, Melanie Maillard, with her as well.She has been wearing a T-shirt that says “Face Your Fears” around the grounds of the tournament.“Losing finals is one of them,” she said, after thrashing Caroline Garcia of France, a rival since they were juniors, in the semifinals. “Face all the stress. I think the most important thing is accept that I’m playing a big final and accept all the emotions that are going to come my way.Familiarizing herself with that fear may be a worthwhile exercise. Swiatek has made 10 finals during her first three years as a full-time professional. She has won nine of them.“Iga never loses finals,” Jabeur said. “So it’s going to be very tough.”It’s fair to say that neither player expected to do all that well in this tournament, given their form in late July and August.Swiatek won 37 consecutive matches and six straight tournaments through the late winter and spring of this year. But the grass at Wimbledon, a surface she is still figuring out, threw her for a loop, causing a level of discomfort that has taken her all summer to recover from. She lost early in three tournaments, including in her hometown competition in Warsaw.Then she came to North America and struggled to control the kinds of balls that the U.S. Open uses. Less than two months removed from one of the best winning streaks in the modern history of the sport, she found herself not trusting her game.“My level of trust should for sure be higher,” Swiatek said. Instead of panicking, or crying in the bathroom between sets as she said she used to do, she has tried to accept her uncertainty and move on.“Maybe I’m the kind of person who is never going to trust myself,” she said.For Jabeur, the challenge in Saturday’s final is twofold. She has to manage Swiatek’s powerful forehand and unmatched ability to cover the court and hit backhands from a split, and also try to push to the recesses of her mind the baggage and scar tissue from losing in the Wimbledon final after winning the first set.She is the most creative player at the top of the game, capable of all kinds of tricks and spins. Sometimes she can too be creative, forgetting that she can also simplify the game and rely on her own powerful forehand and serve. Jabeur has won all six semifinals she has made this year, but just two of the finals. She would like to make it three on Saturday, but has already adopted a mind-set that will prevent her from getting too low if it doesn’t go that way.“I’m going full in. I’m going for everything,” she said of her mental approach. “I feel very positive about this one. The most important thing is not to regret, because I’m going to give it all on this one. Even if this one is not going to happen, I’m very sure that another one will come.” More

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      Ons Jabeur Will Play Iga Swiatek for the U.S. Open Women’s Singles Title

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      Top-ranked Swiatek will play for her third Grand Slam title. Jabeur, who lost this year’s Wimbledon final, will get another chance to win her first major title.There will be a new U.S. Open women’s singles champion this year, and Ons Jabeur and Iga Swiatek remained in contention in very different ways on Thursday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium.Jabeur needed just 66 minutes to dispatch Caroline Garcia, a quick-striking Frenchwoman who likes to imitate an airplane after her victories but was grounded by the weight of this occasion. Swiatek needed more than two hours to scrap and come back against Aryna Sabalenka, the Belarusian star who is a force of nature and one of the exceedingly rare ball-strikers powerful enough to dictate terms to the explosive Swiatek.But Swiatek, still the world No. 1 by a cavernous margin, found a way to navigate in heavy weather, rallying from losing the first set and from falling behind by 4-2 in the third to prevail by 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 and reach her first major final on a surface that is not red and slippery.She has won two French Opens on clay, the first out of close to nowhere in October 2020 and the other as the heavy favorite this June. But Swiatek, who has won six tournaments during this breakthrough season, can take her campaign and career to a new level if she can win her first hardcourt major on Saturday night.She said she was proud that she had learned to adjust on the run and at rest; sitting on changeovers with her eyes closed while trying to solve tennis riddles. It is a method she has long emphasized in her work with Daria Abramowicz, her performance psychologist.“Earlier I felt like my emotions kind of were taking over and I was panicking a little bit when I was losing,” Swiatek said. “For sure I grew up. I learned a lot, and the work we’ve put in with Daria for sure helped. Right now it’s just easier for me to actually logically think what I can change. And I feel like I have more skills to do that than one type of way to play. So I’m pretty happy that it changed because I think that’s basically the most important thing on the highest level.”Jabeur has also worked on her body and mind and has been rewarded with the best season of her career. Sitting at No. 2 in the yearlong points race behind Swiatek, Jabeur, whom her fellow Tunisians have nicknamed the Minister of Happiness, brought some more sunshine to her country and her season on Thursday.Garcia had the hottest hand in tennis with a 13-match winning streak. But Jabeur met the moment with power and precision; with variety and guile. She won the first set in 23 minutes as Garcia pressed and Jabeur slammed aces and chipped backhands that skidded low on the blue Arthur Ashe Stadium hardcourt.She closed out the match, 6-1, 6-3, d punctuating the rout with a shout and a tumble before rising quickly to embrace Garcia, a friend, at the net.Jabeur, who is good company as well as an increasingly great tennis player, has many friends on tour. And there is much to celebrate. After reaching her first Grand Slam singles final in July at Wimbledon, where she lost to Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, Jabeur has followed that up with a run to the final in New York.But Swiatek, 21, deserves to be the favorite on Saturday, even though she and Jabeur have split their four previous matches and Jabeur has had a more straightforward run to her first U.S. Open final.“Two in a row feels amazing,” Jabeur said in her on-court interview. “After Wimbledon, there was a lot of pressure on me, and I’m really relieved that I can back up my results.”Jabeur, seeded fifth after being ranked as high as No. 2 earlier this year, is not only a symbol for Tunisia. She is a symbol for a region and a continent as the first Arab and African woman to reach a U.S. Open singles final.“I take it as a great privilege and as good pressure for me,” she said in a recent interview. “I love that I have that kind of support, and I always try to be positive in my life and see even bad things in a positive way. I don’t just play for myself. I play also for my country.”But the goal, as Jabeur’s poised and relentless performance made clear Thursday, is a first major title. She has made her serve a bigger weapon and though Garcia leads the tour in aces this season, Jabeur had the edge on Thursday, finishing with eight aces to Garcia’s two. Though her first-serve percentage was below 50 percent, she won 83 percent of the points when she put her first serve in play while Garcia, who played far below the level she had shown in recent weeks, struggled to win points quickly with her serve. Garcia finished with 23 unforced errors and just 12 winners despite her aggressive tactics. Jabeur had 21 winners and 15 unforced errors.“She knows now where she’s going, and she knows now what she wants,” said Melanie Maillard, a French performance psychologist who has worked with Jabeur since 2016. “She’s given herself the means. She’s dedicated and so determined.”Jabeur was poised and relentless, closing out the match in 66 minutes.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesIt has been a long haul for Jabeur, 28, to believe that someone from a modest background and a nation that had never produced a top-10 tennis player could hit the highest notes in a global sport. She spent long stretches training in France and away from home despite her close connections with her family and her roots.But Jabeur knew what she had been hearing since her youth about her talent: her innate feel for the ball; her capacity to create angles and change speeds and spins, even on the move.“I’ve always believed in mental coaching,” Jabeur said. “I had a mental coach since the age of maybe 12 or 13, long before Melanie, but we’ve been working together with Melanie for a long time, and I’m very lucky I found the right person who could push me through and know me much better. It’s all about the connection between both of us. We did a great job, and we’ve come a long way. But I’ve always been someone who believed in the importance of mental health.”As at Wimbledon, Maillard was in Jabeur’s player box on Thursday night alongside Jabeur’s coach, Issam Jellali, and Jabeur’s husband, Karim Kamoun, who is also her fitness trainer.”Though Thursday’s duel in Ashe Stadium represented new ground for Jabeur and Garcia — neither had been in a U.S. Open semifinal — it also was a flashback. They were junior rivals who played in the U.S. Open girls event in 2010 in the quarterfinals and also played three more times in junior Grand Slam events.Jabeur won all those matches and has now beaten Garcia three times on the pro tour, all in major tournaments. Garcia said that though Jabeur’s spin and variety clearly posed her problems, she was not thinking back during Thursday’s defeat:simply struggling in the present to find solutions and let her game flow freely.“It helped and not at the same time,” Jabeur said of her long-running head-to-head edge. “Because I know she was playing amazing tennis, and that puts a lot of pressure on you.”The pressure should be bigger still against Swiatek, who is gathering strength after failing to win a title since the French Open. Against Sabalenka, Swiatek’s quality of defense and returns ultimately made the small difference, and though Sabalenka has shored up her faltering serve in New York, she was still unable to put first serves in play when she needed them most in her closing service games.The loss hit her hard. Sabalenka arrived at her post-match news conference wearing mirrored sunglasses and kept them on for the entirety of her interview as she spoke in tones much more subdued than her high-intensity, high-volume approach to thumping tennis balls.This was a big opportunity indeed: a wide-open major tournament. But only two players still have a chance to win it, and it seems fitting that they have been, on balance, the two best players of the season.“She has different game style than most of the players,” Swiatek said of Jabeur. “She has a great touch. All these things mixed up, she’s just a tough opponent. She fully deserves to be in the final. I think it’s going to be a great battle.” More