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      Novak Djokovic Beat Alexander Zverev, Will Play for Grand Slam at U.S. Open

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      Djokovic beat Alexander Zverev, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, and has a chance to become the first man since 1969 to win a calendar-year Grand Slam. He will play Daniil Medvedev in the final on Sunday.Twenty-seven down, one to go.With a five-set win over Alexander Zverev of Germany on Friday night, Novak Djokovic moved to within a single match victory of pulling off the most hallowed achievement in tennis.After winning the Australian Open, the French Open and Wimbledon this year and knocking out his first challengers at the U.S. Open, Djokovic now has to defeat only Daniil Medvedev of Russia in Sunday’s final to become the first man to win the Grand Slam in a calendar year since Rod Laver did it in 1969.And he got there in style, coming from behind early on, then surviving an onslaught from an opponent who seemed for a time that he might just have Djokovic’s number. Zverev came close, forcing Djokovic to go the distance in a grueling 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 win, but the razor-thin margin only made Djokovic’s number at the Grand Slams in 2021 seem even more mysterious.The win on Friday night set the stage for one of the most remarkable weekends in tennis. On Saturday, the teenage sensations Emma Raducanu of Britain and Leylah Fernandez of Canada, who have captivated their countries and the crowds at the U.S. Open, will compete for the women’s title in the unlikeliest of finals.Raducanu, 18 and ranked 150th in the world, was barely known two weeks ago and now is the first player to reach a Grand Slam final after making it into the main draw through the qualifying tournament. Fernandez, who turned 19 this week and is ranked 73rd, was until a few days ago known as little more than a scrappy, undersized battler whose future was anyone’s guess.On Sunday, Djokovic will take on Medvedev and play for history. He is tied with his biggest rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, in the race for the most career Grand Slam titles with 20, a competition that Djokovic is determined to win so he can cement his legacy as the greatest player ever. But that race may take a few more years to reach its conclusion. At this point, though, it is nearly impossible to believe that Federer and Nadal, who are battling age and injury, can win a calendar-year Grand Slam. It is the thing that would make Djokovic the biggest of the Big Three forever.Djokovic went into Friday night’s battle with the fourth-seeded Zverev after playing what he said were the three best sets of the tournament in a quarterfinal defeat of Matteo Berrettini: a four-set, come-from-behind win over a younger, bigger and more powerful opponent.Alexander Zverev won the opening set.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesDjokovic, 34, was going to need a repeat performance against Zverev, a so-called next generation star who has figured out in the last year how to keep his cool in the biggest moments. In the U.S. Open final last year, Zverev blew a two-set lead, and even served for the championship, only to lose to Dominic Thiem in a tiebreaker at the end of a fifth set that descended into a parade of slices, errors and double faults.That version of Zverev has disappeared in recent months, especially against Djokovic. In the Tokyo Olympics, Zverev roared back from a set and a service break down to overwhelm Djokovic in a semifinal.When the draw for the U.S. Open came out two weeks ago, a rematch with Zverev in the semifinal round loomed as one of the biggest potential obstacles for Djokovic in his hunt for his sport’s holy grail. Zverev, 24, stands 6 feet 6 inches tall, floats around the tennis court with the grace of an N.B.A. shooting guard, and can unleash 130 m.p.h serves and rocketing forehands at will when he is playing well.For the first time since the tournament began, though, the crowd in Arthur Ashe Stadium was firmly in Djokovic’s corner. He has long been far more respected than loved, but a former girlfriend has accused Zverev of abusing her repeatedly in 2019. No charges have been filed and Zverev has denied the allegations, but the off-the-court situation disqualified him from being embraced as an endearing underdog.Chants of “Nole” — Djokovic’s favored nickname — began early in the night and spurred him as he mounted his latest comeback.Fans react during the third set.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesThe match started as so many others have for Djokovic — with an early hiccup that made the mountain he would have to climb that much steeper.This slip occurred as Djokovic served with the score tied at four games each, a moment fraught with danger against someone with a serve as powerful as Zverev’s.Zverev played his most aggressive game of the young night, whipping forehands that forced Djokovic to stretch on his backhand. Zverev inched ahead, and then Djokovic double-faulted to give the big German a chance to serve out the set. He did not waste it. Zverev won the opening set, just as Djokovic’s previous three opponents had.But Djokovic is as good at flipping the script as anyone who has ever picked up a racket.Berrettini has said Djokovic somehow gains energy from losing a set, rather than becoming demoralized. Just as he had in his last three matches, Djokovic raised the level of his game and surged to a second-set lead as Zverev began swatting untimely second serves into the net and getting lulled into the kinds of long rallies that are Djokovic’s strength. An hour-and-a-quarter after they began, Djokovic and Zverev were back where they started, all tied up.The turning point of the match came nearly an hour later. With Zverev serving to stay in the set, Djokovic put on a display of tennis genius and played a game that may be the one historians point to as the moment the finish line of the Grand Slam finally came into sight.Djokovic serving.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesNo one in Arthur Ashe Stadium knew better than Zverev that rallying with Djokovic would result in a slow and painful death. And yet, somehow, Djokovic managed to play a kind of tennis Tai chi, sustaining rallies of 18, 32 and 12 shots to get to triple set point. Zverev survived rallies of 21 shots and an absurd 53 to save the first two.Then, on the 15th shot of the sixth point of the game, he could do no better than float a desperate lob to Djokovic, who was waiting at the net to swat it down to take the lead for the first time all night.Zverev would not go quietly, though. He took a page out of the Djokovic playbook and somehow seemed to draw energy from falling behind. With Djokovic serving at 1-1, Zverev battled to turn the third game into a mini-marathon, digging in and clinching it with a slick forehand passing shot that Djokovic could not come close to touching. With Zverev’s serve cranking up beyond the 130 m.p.h mark, Djokovic could not find the opening to get even. Djokovic’s chance at history was down to a single set.Djokovic’s run to the precipice of the Grand Slam has had its share five-set escapes. There was an early round escape against in Australia in February, when he overcame a torn abdominal muscle and the American Taylor Fritz. In Paris, he came back from two sets down to Lorenzo Musetti midway through the tournament and against Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final.Now came the chance for one more, and he did not waste any time jumping on it. Holding a 1-0 lead, Djokovic — and likely everyone else in the stadium — could sense Zverev growing shaky. A double-fault gave Djokovic a sniff at a break at 15-30. A backhand error gave Djokovic the break point. Then one more rally went the wrong way for Zverev, and the set became a seemingly inevitable series of Zverev misses, including one leaping overhead smashed wildly out of bounds.One last backhand error for one last service break and after 3 hours and 35 minutes, Zverev was finally done, and the Grand Slam math was very, very simple: The only numbers that mattered were these — 27 matches down, one to go.Ben Solomon for The New York Times More

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      Daniil Medvedev Easily Advances to U.S. Open Men's Final

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      The No. 2 seed booked a spot in his second Open final, beating the 12th-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime, 6-4, 7-5, 6-2. Medvedev will play either Novak Djokovic or Alexander Zverev.When Daniil Medvedev made his first U.S. Open final two years ago, he did it to a soundtrack of frequent boos, leaning into a villain role he acquired during a contentious third-round match and goading the crowd before ultimately winning it over with his valorous losing effort in the final against Rafael Nadal.This year, on his second trip to the final, Medvedev raced quietly through the draw, winning with little drama or excitement compared with the teenagers Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu, who have electrified the women’s draw, and with Novak Djokovic’s quest for the Grand Slam on the other half of the men’s draw.The second-seeded Medvedev advanced on Friday afternoon, beating the 12th-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime, 6-4, 7-5, 6-2.Medvedev, 25, awaits the winner of the second semifinal between the top-seeded Djokovic and the fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev.Medvedev has dropped only one set in the tournament, against the qualifier Botic Van de Zandschulp in the quarterfinals. He has spent only 11 hours and 51 minutes on court en route to the final, less time than Fernandez needed to reach her final while playing in the best-of-three format vs. the best-of-five for the men.Medvedev played his typical style against Auger-Aliassime, hitting big serves while neutralizing his opponent’s power by standing in the outer realms of the court to return.Auger-Aliassime, 21, found success midway through the second set, coming forward with increasing frequency to take advantage of Medvedev’s distal court positioning. After earning a break point with a 20-shot rally he finished at net, Auger-Aliassime broke on a Medvedev double fault to go up by 4-2 in the second.“In the second set, I think everybody felt like it’s going to be one-set-all,” Medvedev said in his on-court interview. “You never know where the match is going to go.”After extending his lead to 5-2 with four unreturnable serves, Auger-Aliassime began to falter. He earned two set points at 5-3, and came forward on the second one but slipped and badly missed a forehand volley.“He didn’t give me much opening,” Auger-Aliassime, who was playing in his first major semifinal, said in his news conference. “Against a player like that, you don’t really have room for mistakes, room for losing your focus, which I did at the end of the second. He took advantage of it and I didn’t get another chance after that.”Felix Auger-Aliassime built a 5-2 lead in the second set on the strength of his serves.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesMedvedev broke two points later on a backhand miss by Auger-Aliassime.“He missed one volley, I made one good point, and the match turned around completely,” Medvedev said. “I’m really happy. I don’t think I played my best today, but I’m really happy to be in the final on Sunday.”When Auger-Aliassime served again at 5-5, he handed Medvedev a break at love with three unforced errors and a double fault. Medvedev closed out the set a game later with an ace. “That’s the moment where I could break him, mentally,” Medvedev said. “And that’s what happened.”The third set was a rout, with Medvedev breaking in the third and fifth games, and Auger-Aliassime no longer charging the net as he once had. Medvedev finished the match with his own venture to the front of the court, knocking away an overhead that Auger-Aliassime could barely reach.Medvedev finished with 37 winners to Auger-Aliassime’s 17. Medvedev particularly dominated the shortest exchanges in the match, winning 63 percent of points that lasted four or fewer shots.This is the first U.S. Open in which none of the men’s or women’s singles semifinalists has been an American. None advanced past even the fourth round.There have been, however, American successes in other draws.Robin Montgomery, a 16-year-old from Washington, D.C., reached the girls’ singles final with a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Solana Sierra of Argentina.The Americans Coco Gauff, 17, and Caty McNally, 19, reached the women’s doubles final when one of their opponents, Luisa Stefani, retired during a first set tiebreaker with a knee injury. Rajeev Ram of Indiana won the men’s doubles title with his British partner, Joe Salisbury, beating Bruno Soares and Jamie Murray, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2.Though Ram, 37, is older than Gauff and McNally combined, he said he saw no reason to set a finish line on his career.“I feel like I don’t ever really put a timeline on it,” Ram said. “I enjoy it. I feel like I’m playing pretty well. Winning stuff like this helps me think that way.” More

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      Novak Djokovic Is Ready For Another Fight

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      As he closes in on a rare calendar-year Grand Slam, Novak Djokovic has mastered readying himself for tennis as hand-to-hand combat.“A good fight.” “A battle.”This, invariably, is Novak Djokovic, late in the evening, often well past midnight, when another day of work is finally done, when the arena has emptied and he sits in front of a microphone, his piercing eyes an odd combination of glazed and steely, and he tries to put into words what he has just endured.To so many tennis players, their game exists as a kind of art. Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, the world’s third-ranked player, talks about tennis as a form of self-expression.To Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who is No. 2 in the world rankings, tennis is a chess match, requiring the ability to think several shots ahead, to control the center of the court as though it is the center of a chess board, to make the quick moves needed to shift from defense to offense in an instant.Then there is Djokovic, the player who stands two matches away from pulling off the most hallowed achievement in the game — winning all four Grand Slams in the same calendar year. For Djokovic, tennis is not art, or ballet, and it is certainly not a game. It is combat, a street brawl in which there is only one survivor.“A battle.”“A good fight.”“I can go the distance,” he said as the clock ticked close to 1:30 a.m. Thursday, fittingly using a boxing expression after his 3 hour, 27 minute duel with Matteo Berrettini of Italy in the quarterfinals. “Actually I like to go the distance.”For nearly two weeks, Djokovic, the 34-year-old Serbian, has faced opponents who are younger, some by more than a decade. Several of them are bigger than he is, and seemingly far stronger. “I don’t want to wrestle with him,” Djokovic joked after beating Berrettini, his 25-year-old opponent, who is 6-foot-5 and more than 200 pounds.And yet, Djokovic has left all of them not just defeated but also beaten.Holger Rune, a cocky 18-year-old from Denmark who took a set off him in their first round match, could barely walk by the middle of the third set, crippled by cramping that set in after 90 minutes of chasing Djokovic’s blistering forehands to every corner of the court.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesJenson Brooksby, a 20-year-old American, gave Djokovic all he could handle for a set-and-a-half in the fourth round. But within a few more games, a medical trainer was hovering at his chair, treating him for a hip injury he aggravated during the unmatched physical test that playing Djokovic has become.The signature moments that night came when Djokovic followed up his on-the-run passing shots by staring down his 6-foot-4 foe.He said he wanted Brooksby “to feel” his presence on the court, to understand that he was facing someone with no intention of showing any mercy, no matter how hobbled he might be.“I wanted to wear him down,” he said of Brooksby, “and it worked.”Battlegrounds are familiar territory for Djokovic, a lover of wolves, the product of a region that was war-torn during his childhood. One of his coaches, Goran Ivanisevic, a Croatian, said that the Balkans bred people who are desperate to prove their resourcefulness to a world that, as he put it, expected nothing from you.For Djokovic, in so many ways, this U.S. Open has become a microcosm of a career marked not just by on-court battles with opponents, but by career-long fights against so many other forces in the game: fights against history, to do what no player has done before by taking the lead for most Grand Slam titles; against a tennisphere that so loved its binary duel between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer and preferred not to have Djokovic crashing their Rafa-Roger lovefest. And there is the never-ending fight against the tens of thousands of tennis fans who come to his matches and roar for him to lose, caring little who the opponent is. (If Novak loses, Roger and Rafa win, their logic goes.)Frank Franklin II/Associated PressThe jeering jarred Djokovic on his first night here, as the crowd roared “ROOOOOON!” over and over and showed little appreciation for the start of Djokovic’s quest to achieve something that was considered too difficult in this era, with the three greatest-ever players competing all at once. He was terse in his on-court interview after Rune was finished. He abandoned his trademark gesture of pushing his heart out to the crowd. He was blunt in a post-match news conference.“Obviously you always wish to have the crowd behind you, but it’s not always possible,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”Two matches later, with the jeering reaching full throttle as Kei Nishikori tried to survive, Djokovic pulled off a series of impossible shots at the key moment of the third set. He put his finger to his ear after the first two, demanding the noise that finally surged behind him. After a third, he squinted and glared at the crowd as he sauntered to his chair for the changeover, sending a very clear message — I am going to beat him and I am going to beat you.Always, though, the primary fight is on the court, and it is a battle he begins with a head start, because the players on the receiving end of his blows have convinced themselves that nothing less than the best match of their lives will suffice.Sarah Stier/Getty Images“You have to be perfect,” Alexander Zverev, his semifinal opponent, who beat him at the Olympic Games in Tokyo six weeks ago, said earlier this week. “Most of the time you can’t be perfect. That’s why most of the time people lose to him. You have to win the match yourself. You have to be the one that is dominating the points.”Berrettini looked as though he might have a shot Wednesday night in the quarterfinal.Everything about Berrettini is big — his shoulders, his chest, the way he stalks the court and unleashes his booming serve and massive forehand, plus a Usain Bolt-like stride that sends him from the baseline to the net seemingly in three quick steps. For 80 minutes he took every blow Djokovic tried to land and gave it back, prevailing 7-5 in the first set, sending the teeming stadium packed with 23,000 fans into a frenzy.Djokovic, though, was just getting started, raising his level to win the next three games and making sure Berrettini knew how much more he was going to need to come up with to prevail.Within 40 minutes it was all even. Just before the three-hour mark, a few minutes past midnight, Djokovic was cruising toward the finish. Berrettini was still blasting 130 mile per hour serves, but Djokovic was somehow blasting them right back at his feet and onto the lines. When he ripped a crosscourt forehand that Berrettini could only watch whiz by, the big Italian slumped his shoulders and shook his head.Elsa/Getty ImagesOnce more, Berrettini said, Djokovic had made him sweat in a way other players never do, had taken his early shot square in the mouth when he lost the first set, just as he had to Berrettini in the Wimbledon final, and somehow come back to the court stronger.“He takes energy from that set that he lost,” Berrettini said.Berrettini had plenty of company in defeat. By midnight, when Djokovic had made it clear that his night would end just as all the others had, perhaps half the crowd had gone home. The only ones left chanted “Nole, Nole, Nole, Nole…,” inserting Djokovic’s nickname into the Ole chant.Once more he had fought them all, and won.“Five sets, five hours, whatever it takes,” he said in the bowels of the stadium, just before he left. “That’s why I’m here.” More

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      Novak Djokovic Plays Alexander Zverev in U.S. Open Semifinal

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      As he closes in on a rare calendar-year Grand Slam, Novak Djokovic has mastered readying himself for tennis as hand-to-hand combat.“A good fight.” “A battle.”This, invariably, is Novak Djokovic, late in the evening, often well past midnight, when another day of work is finally done, when the arena has emptied and he sits in front of a microphone, his piercing eyes an odd combination of glazed and steely, and he tries to put into words what he has just endured.To so many tennis players, their game exists as a kind of art. Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece, the world’s third-ranked player, talks about tennis as a form of self-expression.To Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who is No. 2 in the world rankings, tennis is a chess match, requiring the ability to think several shots ahead, to control the center of the court as though it is the center of a chess board, to make the quick moves needed to shift from defense to offense in an instant.Then there is Djokovic, the player who stands two matches away from pulling off the most hallowed achievement in the game — winning all four Grand Slams in the same calendar year. For Djokovic, tennis is not art, or ballet, and it is certainly not a game. It is combat, a street brawl in which there is only one survivor.“A battle.”“A good fight.”“I can go the distance,” he said as the clock ticked close to 1:30 a.m. Thursday, fittingly using a boxing expression after his 3 hour, 27 minute duel with Matteo Berrettini of Italy in the quarterfinals. “Actually I like to go the distance.”For nearly two weeks, Djokovic, the 34-year-old Serbian, has faced opponents who are younger, some by more than a decade. Several of them are bigger than he is, and seemingly far stronger. “I don’t want to wrestle with him,” Djokovic joked after beating Berrettini, his 25-year-old opponent, who is 6-foot-5 and more than 200 pounds.And yet, Djokovic has left all of them not just defeated but also beaten.Holger Rune, a cocky 18-year-old from Denmark who took a set off him in their first round match, could barely walk by the middle of the third set, crippled by cramping that set in after 90 minutes of chasing Djokovic’s blistering forehands to every corner of the court.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesJenson Brooksby, a 20-year-old American, gave Djokovic all he could handle for a set-and-a-half in the fourth round. But within a few more games, a medical trainer was hovering at his chair, treating him for a hip injury he aggravated during the unmatched physical test that playing Djokovic has become.The signature moments that night came when Djokovic followed up his on-the-run passing shots by staring down his 6-foot-4 foe.He said he wanted Brooksby “to feel” his presence on the court, to understand that he was facing someone with no intention of showing any mercy, no matter how hobbled he might be.“I wanted to wear him down,” he said of Brooksby, “and it worked.”Battlegrounds are familiar territory for Djokovic, a lover of wolves, the product of a region that was war-torn during his childhood. One of his coaches, Goran Ivanisevic, a Croatian, said that the Balkans bred people who are desperate to prove their resourcefulness to a world that, as he put it, expected nothing from you.For Djokovic, in so many ways, this U.S. Open has become a microcosm of a career marked not just by on-court battles with opponents, but by career-long fights against so many other forces in the game: fights against history, to do what no player has done before by taking the lead for most Grand Slam titles; against a tennisphere that so loved its binary duel between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer and preferred not to have Djokovic crashing their Rafa-Roger lovefest. And there is the never-ending fight against the tens of thousands of tennis fans who come to his matches and roar for him to lose, caring little who the opponent is. (If Novak loses, Roger and Rafa win, their logic goes.)Frank Franklin II/Associated PressThe jeering jarred Djokovic on his first night here, as the crowd roared “ROOOOOON!” over and over and showed little appreciation for the start of Djokovic’s quest to achieve something that was considered too difficult in this era, with the three greatest-ever players competing all at once. He was terse in his on-court interview after Rune was finished. He abandoned his trademark gesture of pushing his heart out to the crowd. He was blunt in a post-match news conference.“Obviously you always wish to have the crowd behind you, but it’s not always possible,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”Two matches later, with the jeering reaching full throttle as Kei Nishikori tried to survive, Djokovic pulled off a series of impossible shots at the key moment of the third set. He put his finger to his ear after the first two, demanding the noise that finally surged behind him. After a third, he squinted and glared at the crowd as he sauntered to his chair for the changeover, sending a very clear message — I am going to beat him and I am going to beat you.Always, though, the primary fight is on the court, and it is a battle he begins with a head start, because the players on the receiving end of his blows have convinced themselves that nothing less than the best match of their lives will suffice.Sarah Stier/Getty Images“You have to be perfect,” Alexander Zverev, his semifinal opponent, who beat him at the Olympic Games in Tokyo six weeks ago, said earlier this week. “Most of the time you can’t be perfect. That’s why most of the time people lose to him. You have to win the match yourself. You have to be the one that is dominating the points.”Berrettini looked as though he might have a shot Wednesday night in the quarterfinal.Everything about Berrettini is big — his shoulders, his chest, the way he stalks the court and unleashes his booming serve and massive forehand, plus a Usain Bolt-like stride that sends him from the baseline to the net seemingly in three quick steps. For 80 minutes he took every blow Djokovic tried to land and gave it back, prevailing 7-5 in the first set, sending the teeming stadium packed with 23,000 fans into a frenzy.Djokovic, though, was just getting started, raising his level to win the next three games and making sure Berrettini knew how much more he was going to need to come up with to prevail.Within 40 minutes it was all even. Just before the three-hour mark, a few minutes past midnight, Djokovic was cruising toward the finish. Berrettini was still blasting 130 mile per hour serves, but Djokovic was somehow blasting them right back at his feet and onto the lines. When he ripped a crosscourt forehand that Berrettini could only watch whiz by, the big Italian slumped his shoulders and shook his head.Elsa/Getty ImagesOnce more, Berrettini said, Djokovic had made him sweat in a way other players never do, had taken his early shot square in the mouth when he lost the first set, just as he had to Berrettini in the Wimbledon final, and somehow come back to the court stronger.“He takes energy from that set that he lost,” Berrettini said.Berrettini had plenty of company in defeat. By midnight, when Djokovic had made it clear that his night would end just as all the others had, perhaps half the crowd had gone home. The only ones left chanted “Nole, Nole, Nole, Nole…,” inserting Djokovic’s nickname into the Ole chant.Once more he had fought them all, and won.“Five sets, five hours, whatever it takes,” he said in the bowels of the stadium, just before he left. “That’s why I’m here.” More

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      Leylah Fernandez and Emma Raducanu To Meet Saturday in U.S. Open Final

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      The teenagers, who meet in Saturday’s final, have illuminated this U.S. Open and transformed it into perhaps the most surprising women’s Grand Slam tournament of the Open era.It was no mean feat to come up with a tennis story that could compete with the first serious bid for a men’s singles Grand Slam in 52 years.But the women have somehow managed it in this mad and marvelous edition of the U.S. Open, or to be more precise, the teenagers have managed it.After knocking off their elders one by one by one, Emma Raducanu, 18, of Britain and Leylah Fernandez, 19, of Canada will now play in Saturday’s singles final.“I find it fascinating that literally the only way for the women’s draw to capture some focus away from Novak Djokovic chasing the most historic feat in tennis, the calendar-year Grand Slam, was to come up with something like a fairy tale,” said Pam Shriver, once a surprise U.S. Open finalist herself at age 16. “With all due respect, it couldn’t have been the No. 2 player and No. 10 player facing off, but this story is almost like the perfect complement to Djokovic going for history.”This will be the first all-teenage Grand Slam final since Serena Williams defeated Martina Hingis in 1999 at Flushing Meadows to win the first of her 23 major singles titles.It seems fitting, with Williams missing this tournament with a leg injury and soon to turn 40, that two young players have come along to generate a similar buzz of discovery.But this is not quite the same teenage scene. Williams and Hingis were already stars in 1999. Hingis was ranked No. 1 and seeded No. 1. Williams was seeded No. 7 and had been making headlines and waves with her older sister Venus for years.Fernandez and Raducanu were familiar only to tennis cognoscenti before arriving in New York. Fernandez is unseeded and ranked 73rd. Raducanu is ranked 150th, which meant that she had to make it through qualifying just to reach the main draw. Though she turned heads, particularly in Britain, by reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon in her Grand Slam singles debut this year, she seemed overwhelmed by the moment and the physical challenge and was unable to finish that fourth-round match against Ajla Tomljanovic because she had trouble breathing. But instead of that frightening experience holding her back, she has rebounded beautifully and has yet to drop a set in New York: not in three qualifying matches or her six main-draw matches against vastly more experienced players, including the new Olympic champion Belinda Bencic.Raducanu is now the first qualifier to reach a Grand Slam singles final, going one round further than the likes of John McEnroe.Before Wimbledon, Raducanu was only the 10th ranked player in her own country, but she will be British No. 1 on Monday and potentially the first British woman to win a major singles title since Virginia Wade won Wimbledon in 1977.Wade was watching inside Arthur Ashe Stadium late Thursday night as Raducanu fought off seven break points in her opening two service games and then stepped on the accelerator to defeat the No. 17 seed, Maria Sakkari, 6-1, 6-4.When Raducanu finished off her latest upset with an expertly timed forehand swing volley, she dropped her racket and put both hands on top of her head, a faraway look in her eyes.She was asked later how she would describe what she had accomplished so far.“A surprise,” she said. “Yeah, honestly I just can’t believe it. A shock. Crazy. All of the above. But it means a lot to be here in this situation. I wanted obviously to, like, be playing Grand Slams, but I didn’t know how soon that would be. To be in a Grand Slam final at this stage of my career, I have no words.”Not long before, Fernandez was asked to describe what she had accomplished so far after her much more suspenseful semifinal victory over the No. 2 seed, Aryna Sabalenka.“I’m just having fun,” she said. “I’m trying to produce something for the crowd to enjoy. I’m glad that whatever I’m doing on court, the fans are loving it, and I’m loving it too. We’ll say it’s magical.”The word applies to both players’ runs to the final, but their paths to this rarefied moment have been both remarkably similar and remarkably different. Both were born in Canada, but though Raducanu still holds a Canadian passport, she left with her parents to live in London when she was 2. Both also grew up in multicultural households. Raducanu’s father is Romanian; her mother is Chinese. Fernandez’s father, Jorge, also her coach, was born in Ecuador before immigrating to Canada at age 4 with his parents, and Fernandez’s mother was born in Canada to parents who immigrated from the Philippines.But Fernandez’s family has had significant financial challenges and hardships, with her mother leaving Canada to work in California for several years during Fernandez’s youth to better support the family.“Those few years have been definitely hard for me, because I needed a mom,” Fernandez said. “I needed someone to be there for me through the age of 10 to 13. I’ve barely seen her at that time. Every time I saw her, it was like seeing a stranger but at the same time someone so familiar.”Though Tennis Canada has provided some support for Fernandez’s tennis, money has often been tight, her father said.Fernandez said she also had faced many doubts in her early career about her potential. She remembered a teacher in Canada telling her to stop playing tennis and just focus on her studies because she would “never make it.”“Now I’m laughing,” she said. “I’m just glad that she told me that because every day I have that phrase in my head saying that I’m going to keep going. I’m going to push through, and I’m going to prove to her everything that I’ve dreamed of, I’m going to achieve.”She is off to a fine start in New York after a summer of underwhelming results and after never advancing past the third round in her first six Grand Slam tournaments.Raducanu, whose parents work in finance, does not appear to be fueled by a desire to quiet the skeptics and, unlike Fernandez, she was not firmly set on being a professional tennis player until recently.“Maybe two years ago,” she said. “I always had my education as a backup. I was doing it alongside my tennis. I had options. I still do, but obviously I’m a hundred percent in my tennis now.”Raducanu and Fernandez met as juniors, and Raducanu said they connected over their Canadian roots. But until now their most significant previous match was in the second round of the Wimbledon junior tournament in 2018.They will meet again on Saturday with rather more at stake in the first U.S. Open women’s final between unseeded players.Picking a winner looks like a fool’s errand in light of both players’ inexperience at this level. Raducanu has been the more dominant force, dispatching opponents with powerful precision, and is tied for second in the tournament in the percentage of return games won and percentage of service games won. Fernandez has had to scrap, hustle and believe through four straight three setters. But Fernandez also has had a tougher draw: defeating two former No. 1 players in Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber, the former WTA Finals champ Elina Svitolina and the imposing Sabalenka.Fernandez’s ability to beat that many quality players in taut, tight matches is a tribute to her resolve, adaptability and talent. She is a left-hander, and her serve, particularly her first serve, has been very effective. She has been selectively and effectively bold, hitting more return winners (22) than any player in this Open. Sabalenka overwhelmed her early on Thursday but Fernandez then adjusted to the pace and reeled her in, exchanging low baseline bolts at times and abruptly changing pace with drop shots at others.As tempting as it is to consider this the arrival of two new top-tier players, the recent history of women’s tennis argues for more restraint. The game has been producing new contenders at a rapid clip. Since the start of 2015, there will have been 13 first-time Grand Slam singles champions, with Raducanu or Fernandez set to be the 14th. Some of those champions have established themselves as No. 1 players, like Osaka and Ashleigh Barty. But others have fallen back like Sloane Stephens and Jelena Ostapenko.“On the women’s side in recent times we just don’t know what will happen after they have this success,” Shriver said. “For this particular tournament, it’s incredible, but for it to pay dividends in the long run, we need to see them in the quarters, semis and finals. It would be great, but we have got to be patient because of the way things could be derailed for one or both after this because of the way it changes a teenager’s life. I certainly understand that, but for now, let’s just enjoy it.”That sounds like the right approach. The teenagers’ joy has been a delight to behold as they have taken turns illuminating this U.S. Open and transforming it into perhaps the most surprising women’s Grand Slam tournament of the Open era.Riding back from Queens to Manhattan well after midnight on Friday, the bus passed by a huge U.S. Open billboard of Serena Williams featuring the words “The Return of Amazing.”Even without Williams at Flushing Meadows this year, the words have still rung true. More

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      Leylah Fernandez Advances to the U.S. Open Final

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      The 19-year-old Canadian, who won 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4, becomes the youngest singles finalist at the U.S. Open since Serena Williams advanced at age 17 in 1999.Leylah Fernandez, the Canadian teen sensation, cruised into the finals of the U.S. Open Thursday night, knocking off Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus with an upset that might have been surprising had she not been doing this for the better part of a week.With Steve Nash, the N.B.A. Hall of Famer and Nets coach watching from her box, and all of Canada and seemingly all of New York in her corner, Fernandez, ranked 73rd, notched her fourth consecutive win over one of the world’s top-20 players. Her stunning run has included victories over the second, third, fifth and 16th seeded players in the tournament. She beat Naomi Osaka and Angelique Kerber, the winners of a combined seven Grand Slam singles titles, then knocked off Elina Svitolina, who is considered one of the best players never to have won a Grand Slam tournament.Then came Sabalenka, one of the world’s biggest hitters and its second-ranked player. At 23, she appeared poised this year to take the next step in her development. She has never made a Grand Slam final but lost in the semifinals at Wimbledon and backed that up with another trip to the final four at the U.S. Open.Aryna Sabalenka serving during the match.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesIn Fernandez, though, Sabalenka ran into a player who seems to have convinced herself that she cannot be beaten, that if she can just keep getting the ball back over the net with her brand of power and spin and guile, somehow the match will break her way.It took two hours and 21 minutes for that moment to come, when she finished off a 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-4 win, thanks to two ill-timed double faults from Sabalenka and one last error sailing off the court.“I don’t know how I did that,” Fernandez said, when asked how she had pulled it all off during her on-court interview moments after the final point made the crowd explode one last time.Fernandez became the second Canadian teenager in three years to make the final of the U.S. Open, following in the footsteps of Bianca Andreescu, who beat Serena Williams to win the championship in 2019.Like Andreescu, Fernandez has shot to the top seemingly out of nowhere. Though she had been inching her way up the rankings for the past three years, she had given little indication that she was on the verge of a breakthrough of this magnitude.Fernandez came out jittery, lost her serve and was down 3-0 in the first set. Before long though, she had settled down and proved to be the perfect foil for Sabalenka’s high-octane game that leaves little margin for error. When Sabalenka doesn’t connect, she beats balls into the bottom half of the net or watches them sail five and six feet beyond the baseline, then flails her arms in frustration.There was plenty of that on Thursday evening at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Sabalenka seemed to be making steady progress with a 4-2 lead in the first set, but then made a series of errors to let Fernandez back into the set, including a double fault on game point.At the crucial moment of the first-set tiebreaker, with Fernandez holding a 4-3 lead, Sabalenka missed badly on an easy overhead, double-faulted, then bounced a Fernandez serve on set point into the net.The second set looked like it was going to be a near carbon copy of the first. An early break for Sabalenka, then sloppiness to let Fernandez back into the frame. But then Fernandez cracked in the ninth game, giving Sabalenka a chance to serve out the set. She whirled her arms, begging for some support from the pro-Fernandez crowd.Fans getting into the match as it began to get close.Ben Solomon for The New York TimesOn to the third set they went, trading service games into midway point, when Fernandez, holding a 3-2 lead, let Sabalenka hit herself into trouble, then blocked one of Sabalenka’s hardest serves of the night and watched Sabalenka’s shot float long. But Fernandez struggled with the prosperity, letting Sabalenka break her right back, and a game later knot the score at 4-4.But Fernandez stayed cool, and a game later let Sabalenka take care of business for her. Eventually, things work out for this teenager, at least at this U.S. Open.She will play the winner of the match between Emma Raducanu of Britain and Maria Sakkari of Greece in the final Saturday afternoon. More

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      At US Open, Teen Women Rule and It's Contagious

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      Doubles partners Coco Gauff and Caty McNally credit fellow teenagers Leylah Fernandez and Emma Radacanu for motivating them they advance to the semifinals.As Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez have put themselves one match away from an improbable all-teenage U.S. Open women’s singles final, an even younger duo is just as close to taking the trophy in tandem.Coco Gauff, 17, and Caty McNally, 19, beat the top-seeded doubles pairing of Elise Mertens and Hsieh Su-wei on Wednesday afternoon in the women’s doubles quarterfinals, 6-3, 7-6 (1).In Gauff and McNally’s on-court interview in front of a joyful crowd at Louis Armstrong Stadium, McNally said she had drawn inspiration from her peers’ success in singles.“It’s truly incredible,” McNally said. “I’ve walked past Leylah and Emma in the locker rooms and have just congratulated them, and rooted them on. I think it’s unbelievable. Age is just a number; it doesn’t mean anything. We’re showing that we’re fierce and we’re ready to be out here competing with everyone. I just think it’s awesome.”In their news conference, Gauff said she believed there was “definitely a shift” happening toward a younger generation.“For me, I always knew it was going to come,” Gauff said. “I’m glad. I’m so happy for Leylah and Emma. I’ve known both of them for a long time; they’re both super nice girls, and I’m always cheering for them.” Gauff said she had been due to leave the tournament site during Fernandez’s quarterfinal win Tuesday, but stayed to watch the conclusion. “I had to wait ’til that third set finished,” Gauff said. “It ended up being long, but it was worth the wait.”“I am rooting for both of them,” Gauff added. “Hope we get a teenager final. It’s definitely inspiring. It inspires me to do better and work harder.”Gauff, ranked 23rd in singles, has been a leader for her generation in recent years, resetting expectations of what teenagers can achieve in this era of professional tennis after reaching the second week of Wimbledon in 2019 when she was just 15 years old. McNally has yet to break the top 100 in singles, but said she drew encouragement from Raducanu and Fernandez’s successes.“I think it should just give everyone the inspiration to just go out there and say, ‘Why not me?’” McNally said. “That’s what they’re doing, going out there every match, playing so fearless. ‘Why not me going to the semis, quarters, or winning it?’ They’re playing very boldly, fiercely. Obviously we’re not still in the singles, but I think we can do the same thing in doubles.”McNally and Gauff celebrate match point.Elsa/Getty ImagesDespite their youth, the team dubbed “McCoco” is one of the more established partnerships in women’s tennis. McNally and Gauff first played together three years ago here, winning the U.S. Open girls’ doubles title. They have played together frequently since, winning three WTA titles beginning in 2019, and twice reaching the quarterfinals of the Australian Open.“The main thing that makes us hard to beat is our chemistry with each other,” Gauff said. “If one of us is off, the other one is always there to cover.” (When McNally missed this year’s French Open, Gauff played doubles with a decidedly older partner: then-40-year-old Venus Williams.)Mertens and Hsieh, whose second serves were both relentlessly attacked by the teenagers across the net, were full of praise for the emerging generation.“They have nothing to lose: they can play and be free,” said Mertens, a relative veteran at age 25 who is also ranked in the top 20 in singles. “Body-wise, they’re very mature, and also mentally. They have a lot of power already, for 17 and 18 years old.”Hsieh, 35, was enthusiastic about the youth infusion in the singles and doubles draws at this year’s Open.“It’s always nice to see the young girls coming,” Hsieh said. “They’re pretty, they have energy, and they have different games. It’s an exciting refresh for the tour.”Hsieh, however, said she was happy to watch the youth takeover from a distance, for now. “I hope I don’t need to face them again too fast,” she said. As their on-court interview was wrapping up, Gauff grabbed the microphone to address the “Gen Z” people she saw in attendance.“Armstrong is always a young crowd — I saw a lot of kids out there,” Gauff said in her news conference. “I wanted them to know it definitely can happen to them. I just think if you dream it, you can do it. All those kids out there just reminded me of me when I was here in the U.S. Open watching people play, thinking that I can make it. It’s always such a big dream.“People always say, ‘Yeah, every kid thinks they’re going to be No. 1 and stuff,’” Gauff added. “I think every kid should believe that and should work for it; don’t let adults tell you that you can’t do it.” More

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      At U.S. Open, Novak Djokovic Moves One Step Closer to Grand Slam

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      After dropping the first set, the world No. 1 smoothly beat sixth-seeded Matteo Berrettini, 5-7, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3, to advance to the semifinals against Alexander Zverev.The U.S. Open has waited 52 years for a man to have a chance at winning the Grand Slam, so what’s a few extra hours?Top-ranked Novak Djokovic, undefeated in best-of-five matches this year as he pursues the Grand Slam, again lingered in long form play on Wednesday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium before rerouting to a romp of the sixth-seeded Matteo Berrettini, 5-7, 6-2, 6-2, 6-3.Djokovic’s first set against Berrettini was the third straight time he had lost the opening frame, and also his most taxing set of the tournament. The first game lasted for 14 points; the sixth game needed 20 points. Though Djokovic was broken in the 11th game on a forehand passing shot winner by Berrettini and lost the set soon after, it was Berrettini who needed to leave the court to change out of his sweat-soaked attire just an hour and 17 minutes into the match.Djokovic’s detours at this tournament have not led to despondency, but discovery.The first set against Berrettini was the fourth set Djokovic has lost this tournament. As he did each time before, Djokovic took the information he gleaned and reprogrammed his game with increased precision. After hitting 17 unforced errors in the first set, he hit only three in the second and three in the third. Djokovic had five unforced errors in the fourth set.Through force of will and persistence, he turned the match in his favor, and even won over some of the begrudging crowd. When he held for 5-2 in the third, after saving a Berrettini break point and extinguishing any hope for a comeback, Djokovic held his hand to his ear, imploring the crowd to recognize his indomitability as he moves closer to the Grand Slam, and a record 21st career major singles title.After he got up a break early in the fourth set, Djokovic seemed to shift to a lower gear to coast to the finish, winning only two more points on return to conserve energy. When he wrapped up the victory after three hours and 27 minutes, Djokovic walked briskly to the net, wasting little energy on an elaborate celebration. He took several seconds to find the wristwatch he dons for the on-court interview to fulfill sponsor obligations.“I was locked in, really, from the beginning of the second set,” Djokovic said in his on-court interview. “I took my tennis to a different level. This has been the best three sets I’ve played so far in the tournament, for sure.”Djokovic has won the first 26 of the 28 matches he needs to complete the Grand Slam, but his 27th test may prove to be one of his toughest. On Friday night, Djokovic will face fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev, whose 16-match win streak includes a win over Djokovic in the semifinals of last month’s Tokyo Olympics.Zverev needed only two hours and six minutes to complete his own quarterfinal victory hours earlier, avoiding delay by saving a set point in the tiebreak of his 7-6(6), 6-3, 6-4 win over Lloyd Harris.Where Djokovic has been effective, Zverev has been efficient. Zverev has needed only nine hours and 23 minutes to complete his five wins here; Djokovic has needed 13 hours and 52 minutes.In his news conference on Wednesday, Zverev showed confidence but recognized the task ahead of him.“Against him you prepare that you have to play the best match that you can,” Zverev said of facing Djokovic. “You have to be perfect, otherwise you will not win.“Most of the time you can’t be perfect,” Zverev added. “That’s why most of the time people lose to him.” More