How will the U.S. Open unfold? — Quotes from Media Days
By Joey Dillon
The IX: Tennis Tuesday with Joey Dillon, Aug. 27, 2024
Howdy, y’all, and Happy Tennis Tuesday! The most wonderful time of the year — the U.S. Open — is finally here and while the prize purse is massive, my predictions are even more iconic! We’ve had a summer hardcourt swing that was thwarted by the Paris Olympics on Roland Garros’ red clay, but a few players do stand out from the rest of the crop.
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Of course, World No. 1 and 2022 champion Iga Swiatek is the player to beat even though she struggled some in her lone tuneup event in Cincinnati where she lost to Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals. For the Pole, staying calm in the hustle and bustle New York City (and the crowd’s energy) will be heavily key if she wants to win a second title. Second-seeded Sabalenka withdrew from Wimbledon with a shoulder injury that looked to possibly keep her out for a long time but was able to come back last month. Probably the premier hardcourter on the WTA, the Belarussian has been picking up steam in each of her three warmup tournaments that was capped with a Cincinnati title run without the loss of a set. Defending champion and World No. 3 Coco Gauff hasn’t had a repeat of her scintillating 2023 summer, where she went 1-2 in Toronto and Cincinnati combined. Still, the foreign territory of being a reigning Grand Slam champion is something she’s taking in stride. Lastly, No. 4 Elena Rybakina withdrew from the Olympics and only played one match in Cincinnati is perhaps the largest question mark of the WTA’s “Big Four.” Just before the tournament, the Kazakh announced she and longtime coach Stefano Vukov parted ways which is never the greatest sign before a Grand Slam. The 2024 story for Rybakina has been her health, so if she can avoid illness, she can easily escape with her second Grand Slam trophy.
With the draw unveiled, I will say that overall, I can’t think of a recent Grand Slam that has as much balance as this one does. Still, we have some epic first-rounders that included yesterday’s Zheng Qinwen-Amanda Anisimova and today’s Jelena Ostapenko-Naomi Osaka, Emma Raducanu-Sofia Kenin and Bianca Andreescu-Jasmine Paolini. Those are definitely the matches you would want to tune in today if you wanted tossups that could severely go either way. The one the Big Babe Tennis lover in me circled is Ostapenko-Osaka, but the potential big upset can come from 2019 champion Andreescu, who lost to Paolini at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon and the Italian ended up making runs to both finals. While Paolini is playing career-best tennis, you can never count out a fighter like Andreescu who is definitely eager to ensure that the third time is the charm.
Other players that can crank out a surprise (or perhaps unsurprising) deep run? Emma Navarro, who fell in the opening round last year but enters this draw as the No. 13 seed after a heavy workload across the globe. Zheng Qinwen was impressive in her rally over Anisimova in the opening round, while Paula Badosa has been playing the stellar tennis that once got her to No. 2 in the world. Lastly, Donna Vekic broke through to finally reach a Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon, losing an epic to Paolini, but then recovered to claim a silver medal in Paris. With her current form, her No. 24 seeding seems mighty low so expect her to surpass the third round.
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Round of 16
(1) Iga Swiatek def. (21) Mirra Andreeva
(6) Jessica Pegula def. (11) Danielle Collins
(4) Elena Rybakina def. (22) Beatriz Haddad Maia
(10) Jelena Ostapenko def. (5) Jasmine Paolini
(26) Paula Badosa def. (20) Victoria Azarenka
(3) Coco Gauff def. (13) Emma Navarro(WC) Amanda Anisimova def. (24) Donna Vekic
(2) Aryna Sabalenka def. (14) Madison Keys
Quarterfinals
(1) Iga Swiatek def. (6) Jessica Pegula
(4) Elena Rybakina def. (10) Jelena Ostapenko
(3) Coco Gauff def. (26) Paula Badosa
(2) Aryna Sabalenka def. (WC) Amanda Anisimova
Semi-Finals
(1) Iga Swiatek def. (4) Elena Rybakina
(2) Aryna Sabalenka def. (3) Coco Gauff
Final
(2) Aryna Sabalenka def. (1) Iga Swiatek
Perhaps I’ll be eating crow, but it could be another Top 4 or bust. However, what the hell do I know?! My batting average is something I don’t even want to think about. I do think Badosa/Azarenka and Ostapenko can threaten one of them, but sustain to take the rest out? It just seems too unlikely.
On to links!
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This Week in Women’s Tennis
Linda Noskova won the first WTA singles title of her career at the Abierto GNP Seguros, knocking out first-time finalist Lulu Sun. The doubles title was won by Guo Hanyu and Monica Niculescu, upsetting No.1 seeds Giuliana Olmos and Alexandra Panova in a match tiebreaker.
At Tennis in the Land, McCartney Kessler had a dream week in her first full week as a Top 100, starting with her first WTA main draw win outside of a Grand Slam and finishing with her first WTA singles title. She upset top-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maia and beat three of the Top 5 seeds en route, where four of her five matches were in three sets. In doubles, the title was won by Cristina Bucsa and Xu Yifan, who needed a match tiebreaker to defeat Shuko Aoyama and Eri Hozumi.
In a little bit of bummer news, Shelby Rogers announced that the U.S. Open would be her final tournament. A player that could knock out the big names on the biggest stages, she was also dealt with some pretty tough knee injuries she could never recover from. A delight on tour, she is going to be incredibly missed:
The big college tennis news of the week was the sudden retirement of Stanford’s Lele Forood, who stepped down after 24 seasons as Head Coach that produced some stunning stats:
- 560-63 record
- 10 NCAA team titles
- 16 regular and 6 tournament conference titles
- Guiding players to 28 All-American distinctions that included 5 NCAA singles and 5 NCAA doubles champions
- A 184 home-match winning streak
Last year, Coco Vandeweghe played her final Grand Slam matches at the U.S. Open and this year is gearing up on the other end of the screen as a commentator.
I try to snag as much as I can from Lululemon’s tennis line, which is growing in the market thanks to Leylah Fernandez, who also finding some form after a deep doubles run with her sister in Toronto this month.
The late Darlene Hard, who worked at USC in Student Publications in 42 years, surprisingly kept her first career that saw her win 21 Grand Slams across all three disciplines, a secret.
Congratulations to Sloane Stephens, who unveiled the first products of her Doc & Glo beauty line in a deodorizing spray and deodorant. I’ve ordered both products and will make sure to let you know how they hold up!
David Kane sat down with Karolina Pliskova, who was the runner-up in New York after beating both Venus and Serena Williams in 2016, to discuss how her vision to her career has changed as she is at the tailend of it.
Carol Zhao’s wedding to Doordash co-founder and fellow Stanford Cardinal Andy Fang was featured by Vogue and it was very interesting to read how she was able to plan things during the tennis season.
Iva Jovic is a name you might not have heard of, but you might want to get familiar with after winning the USTA 18s National tournament and making use of her U.S. Open wildcard by upsetting Magda Linette.
The Lindner Family Tennis Center, home to the Cincinnati Open, aims to produce year-round events as it continues their $260M renovation.
The USTA shared they’ve created an advisory council that includes Madison Keys and Jessica Pegula to help facilitate discussions and decisions to optimize America’s high-performance players.
The ATP and WTA’s joint video game feature, Tiebreak, was formally rolled out and is available on a variety of devices with Nintendo Switch on the horizon.
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Tweet of the Week
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Five at The IX: U.S. Open Media Day
Q. When you allow yourself, if you do, to ever think about what it would be like to win a Grand Slam title, what comes to mind? What do you picture? What do you think about?
JESSICA PEGULA: It would be awesome. It would be frickin’ awesome if I won a Grand Slam. I definitely allow myself to dream, I always have since I was a kid. So I think you have to take yourself to those moments.
Yeah, it would be incredible, and I think it would be a lot of, not like relief, but it’s just like a reward for all the hard work. And being able to come through two weeks of a Slam, there are so many challenges you’re overcoming in those two weeks. So I think it would just be a relief of being able to overcome those challenges.
I think that’s kind of what it is. And yeah, I would love to be able to say that I accomplished that. That’s always my goal going into a Grand Slam. And if it doesn’t happen, I mean, you just try to put yourself in the best possible space to make it happen, but you kind of know that you did your best and you tried your best, and that sounds cliché, but it’s really the only way you can keep moving on and keep competing.
Yeah, I think, again, every day is just a new day with a new set of challenges, and that’s kind of how I’m going to approach it, but would obviously love to be able to take home the title.
Q. You mentioned the mantra that you have now, if you’re defending, that means you won something. How recent was it that you came up with it? Compared to last year when you talked about how your doubters motivated you, is that mantra the way you kind of motivate yourself more going into this year outside of just wanting to win?
COCO GAUFF: Yeah, honestly, like, a couple days ago somebody commented on my TikTok and the comment said, why stress yourself out over — it said, you’ve won literally and figuratively. Why stress yourself out over a victory lap? I was, like, that’s actually a good perspective. No one can take that from me so why stress myself over something that I already have. I’m just wanting to add to that, whether it happens here in two weeks or next year here or at Australia or whatever, there’s no point.
So I think I saw that comment, like, three days ago, and I was, like, okay, I’m going to stick by that and use that, because it really changed my perspective coming into this.
And, yeah, I still use the doubters as motivation. I know people have said things about me online and will continue to for the rest of my life, but I know it comes just out of a sense of, I don’t know, maybe hatred or jealousy, I don’t know. But for me, I never root on people’s downfalls. Regardless of who you are, I’ll never root on somebody’s downfall. I’ll always root for success.
I just wish the rest of the world or people were like that, which most of them are, but there’s always like the 2% that like to have their moment every now and then.
Q. In terms of that, having a different mindset, and you talked a little bit about how the pressure feels different than last year here, does this feel then kind of — not that a Grand Slam is ever going to be relaxing — kind of the most chill you’ve come into New York in quite some time? Because obviously in ’22 there was a lot going on in that season as well. So does it feel more relaxed?
IGA SWIATEK: In 2022, for sure, that was the Grand Slam that I was least chilled at. Even though I won, I didn’t feel comfortable on the court at all. Maybe only, like — yeah, I didn’t feel like at all. I didn’t feel like I can play my game naturally.
So it would be stupid for me to expect that I’m going to feel it, you know, next years. US Open 2022 actually taught me that I can win even though I’m not feeling 100%. So I wouldn’t say now I’m relaxed, because it’s impossible to be relaxed in New York, especially, you know, with everything that’s going on around.
It’s pretty loud here. In Cincinnati, for example, we could really focus and just, like, the priority every day was basically the practice. Here, you have so many activities off the court, you need to balance it wisely, and the practice is always going to be a priority, but you have so many things to also think about.
So I wouldn’t say I’m relaxed, but for sure I’m trying to learn from past experiences. I feel like I’m maybe a little bit smarter and hopefully I’m going to be able to use that.
Q. So mentally and physically, since the Australian Open, do you think you’re probably feeling at your best now? I read, not just about the shoulder injury at Wimbledon, but the interview you gave to “The Guardian” where you said you probably overplayed and carried on playing in March after the terrible events there?
ARYNA SABALENKA: Yeah, well, I think definitely after this year mentally I will become even stronger, which I felt like there is no gap to get stronger mentally than I am at the moment. But yeah, things showed me that actually there is way to improve.
Yeah, looking back, I definitely think that I should have just stopped and just kind of like, yeah, like, separate myself from tennis, just, like, have this little break and recharge and kind of like start things over again.
I think I kind of, like, overplayed, and I carried a lot. At the end, it just hit me with the injury, and also, I was sick, I was injured, I had stomach issue at the French Open. You know, like, health-wise I was struggling a lot, and yeah, and that’s why I think that this break was much needed.
Not like I’m happy to get injured, but I’m happy that I had this time off and this kind of like time to reset my mind, and yeah, to get ready for the hard court.
Q. I know you work very hard and you’ve put in a lot of years, but to what do you attribute this year’s breakthroughs at the Australian and the Olympics?
ZHENG QINWEN: Well, I always say that, you know, after Australian Open, of course it’s a really good result for me, but I had a lot of ups and downs after Australia, because I say I lost some motivations, I’m different in the practice. And after I won Olympic gold medals, the first thing I told to myself is I want to keep the motivation on. I don’t want to let myself slip again. I really want to improve one more time in my mental side. It’s mean how to maintain the level when you are become a champion and just to keep winning, winning, winning, instead of getting relaxed and let yourself lose easy match.
If I’m able to do that, I think I will really break through some wall that I have for myself. I’m just trying to work really hard on my mental side. I wish this time I can perform as well, yeah. That’s all I can say.
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