FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. — The Amanda Anisimova redemption tour rolls on.
Not content to merely exorcise the ghosts of her 6-0, 6-0 defeat to Iga Świątek in the Wimbledon final, Anisimova climbed back from a wrenching loss in a first-set tiebreak to beat Naomi Osaka 6-7(4), 7-6(3), 6-3 and set up a U.S. Open final against Aryna Sabalenka, the reigning champion in New York and the player Anisimova stunned for the right to face Świątek in that Wimbledon final that turned into a nightmare rout.
Late in the second set at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Anisimova had looked spent. She heaved for oxygen after nearly every point. She struggled to spring her legs into her serve. But she kept grinding, and as Osaka slipped, suddenly missing the court on four consecutive points in the second set tiebreak, Anisimova surged.
As Thursday night rolled into Friday morning, Anisimova’s strokes had the same frozen-rope surety that had gotten her past Świątek in the quarterfinal. Her serves shot off the court, forcing Osaka back on her heels. And when Osaka, the four-time Grand Slam champion on a mission to regain her form of old, had to spin a second serve into the box, Anisimova reared back and nailed them for winners with the authority of someone on a mission.
On a night when neither player was at her best, both of them playing one day after a remarkable quarterfinal win, Osaka was a little bit cleaner, especially in the big moments — just as she could be when she was dominating this sport five, six, and seven years ago. She had played a sloppy game in failing to serve out the first set at 5-4. But once they got into a tiebreak, Anisimova couldn’t find the court as Osaka built a 6-1 lead around big serves and solid play off the ground.
Anisimova tried to claw back, breaking Osaka immediately to open the second set. Osaka immediately came back with a break of her own. That pattern carried through just about all night, with Anisimova broken immediately after breaking four times out of five.
Until it really mattered, when Anisimova summoned the confidence that had seemed to desert her.
Ahead 2-1 and with two break-point chances in the third set, Anisimova only needed one swing. She took dead aim at an Osaka second serve and blasted a forehand across the court. Osaka looked at the ball, barely moved her feet, and then looked at the ground. After nearly two and a half hours, Osaka was behind for the first time all night. And Anisimova did not want to let her draw even again, much less retake control.
Anisimova had the chance to serve it out at 5-3, with the few thousand fans who stayed the course to near 1 a.m. screaming to give her that little extra power. Anisimova dialed in, desperately refusing to give Osaka any openings. Her backhand down the line, which she had abandoned after a few misses early in the match even when it was screaming to be hit, took her to 30-0 with a stunner that Osaka could only watch.
Another took her to two match points. Osaka saved one, bouncing on her feet to stave off the next. Anisimova netted. Then she double-faulted. Against Świątek, in two nervous moments, one of them on match point, net cords had given her safe harbor. This time she did it all herself, climbing up from the baseline to pelt a forehand winner and pin Osaka back again. She did it again, this time with another backhand down the line. Again, with an inside-out forehand that had Osaka down on one knee trying to retrieve it.
One more big inside-in forehand and off Anisimova went, into a first U.S. Open final. She crouched on her knees at the net, holding her head in her hands. Just 54 days had passed since Anisimova had suffered one of the sport’s greatest humiliations. Now she had grabbed herself another chance at its greatest glory.
“I wasn’t sure I would make it past the finish line,” she said. “I just tried to stay positive.”
A little less than an hour after, she confessed that there were a lot of moments when she felt the night was lost. “Most of the night, I felt like it was going to slip away from me and not make it to the final,” she said.
At first, she tried to accept that it just wasn’t her night. Then, when she was still close late in the the second set, she told herself not to waste the opportunity.
“I could have easily said she’s playing better than me,” she said. “I’ve shifted with my attitude.”
“I don’t feel sad,” Osaka said. “It’s really weird. Well, it’s not weird, because I just feel like I did the best that I could. Honestly, it’s kind of inspiring for me, because it makes me just want to train and try to get better, and hopefully, yeah, just give it my very best shot again and see what happens.
“But I think I can’t be mad or upset at myself.”
The win sets up Anisimova’s showdown against Sabalenka, the world No. 1 and defending champion. Sabalenka had stormed back from a set down against Jessica Pegula in the first match of the evening, dialing up her efficiency to win 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 after Pegula had shackled her with a masterful returning display.
American women, one of them Anisimova, have squeaked past Sabalenka in the late rounds of three Grand Slams this year. It looked like Pegula was going to make it four in a row as she played one of the great sets of her tennis life against a top player.
She drew blood with some big serving, and by pounding the Sabalenka backhand. Sabalenka’s kill shot is her forehand, but it is also her more erratic groundstroke, especially if she has to hit it on the move. More often than not, the backhand is steady. But Pegula broke down Sabalenka’s tolerance on the backhand side, causing her to both grow impatient and over-protect it, leaving space for the American to attack.
Ultimately, Sabalenka cleaned up her first-set errors, and in the big moments, when Pegula was a point away from drawing level, Sabalenka used her greatest weapon of all. Even on a night when Pegula’s return was world class, Sabalenka often nailed her spots at high speed and snuffed out most of Pegula’s opportunities before they could develop.
She will likely need plenty of that against Anisimova, one of the game’s biggest, cleanest hitters and a player who loves nothing more than to jump on second serves and swing away. But both players have evolved in recent years — and in Anisimova’s case weeks — from the archetypes they once were. Sabalenka has incorporated enough slices and drop shots to keep her opponents on their toes, while Anisimova, who watched back that Wimbledon nightmare and concluded that she was “dead slow”, has improved her defense in and out of the corners and her longevity in side-to-side points at the baseline.
For a fifth consecutive Grand Slam, an American woman will play in the final. Two have won. Anisimova has gotten there twice in two months, this time in her home Slam.
“It means the world to me,” Anisimova said, “This had been a dream of mine to become the champion.”
(Photo: Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)
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