New York (AFP) – Aryna Sabalenka and Jessica Pegula clash for the US Open women’s title on Saturday united by Grand Slam dreams overshadowed by personal heartbreak. World number two Sabalenka, the double Australian Open champion, has made the final in New York for a second successive year after finishing runner-up to Coco Gauff in 2023. Pegula is in her first major final at the age of 30 after stunning top seed Iga Swiatek in the last-eight and then mounting an astonishing comeback to beat Karolina Muchova in the last-four.
Sabalenka, from Belarus but based in Florida, is playing in her first Grand Slam final since the death of her former boyfriend in March. Ice hockey player Konstantin Koltsov, once a star of the NHL, died from apparent suicide at the age of 42. Sabalenka described the death as an “unthinkable tragedy.” “While we were no longer together, my heart is broken,” she wrote on a social media post. Five years ago, Sabalenka’s father Sergiy passed away from meningitis at just 43. It was her father who introduced her to tennis at the age of six when they started hitting balls on empty courts in Minsk.
“I’m just trying to fight because my dad wanted me to be No 1,” she said at the time. “I’m doing it for him.” She honoured her father’s memory by becoming world number one in September last year, a season which saw her claim her maiden Slam in Australia, finish runner-up in New York, and make the semi-finals at the French Open and Wimbledon.
Much is made of Pegula being the daughter of oil mogul Terry and Kim Pegula, the billionaire owners of the Buffalo Bills NFL team and Buffalo Sabres NHL ice hockey side. However, the family’s luxury lifestyle counted for little in June 2022 when Kim went into cardiac arrest and suffered brain damage and memory loss.
“My mom loved to work. She did everything and our family constantly told her how she needs to slow down and take time for herself,” Pegula wrote in a moving first-person post for Players Tribune in February 2023. “She gave everyone so much of her time and effort. She lived it and loved it, and it was felt by everyone she met. Now we come to the realisation that all of that is most likely gone. That she won’t be able to be that person anymore.”
Pegula, who had lost in Grand Slam quarter-finals six times before finally breaking through to the US Open championship match, will enjoy the emotional support of the 24,000-capacity crowd inside Arthur Ashe Stadium on Saturday. Sabalenka said she is ready for that after thinly-disguised criticism of the crowd in her semi-final win over New York-born Emma Navarro.
“Last year it was a very tough experience, a very tough lesson,” said Sabalenka of her 2023 final defeat to Gauff where she let slip a one-set lead. “Today I was like, No, no, no, Aryna, it’s not going to happen again. You have to control your emotions. You have to focus on yourself. There were people supporting for me. I was trying to focus on them.”
Sabalenka enjoys a 5-2 head-to-head record over Pegula, winning their most recent clash in the final at Cincinnati last month. That loss was the only one suffered by Pegula in the North American hardcourt season. She has racked up 15 wins in 16 matches. Victory on Saturday would make Sabalenka the first woman since Angelique Kerber in 2016 to win both hardcourt Slams in the same season. Pegula, meanwhile, would become only the third woman after Ann Jones (1969 Wimbledon) and Flavia Pennetta (2015 US Open) in the modern era to win her first major title after turning 30.
“If you would have told me at the beginning of the year I’d be in the finals of the US Open, I would have laughed so hard,” admitted Pegula who missed the European claycourt swing with a back injury.
© 2024 AFP
