Coco Gauff has arrived, and so has the future of American tennis (2024)

NEW YORK — Late last summer, New York said goodbye to one beloved legend at Arthur Ashe Stadium, when Serena Williams concluded her brilliant career on the biggest stage in American tennis.

One year later, and on the same concrete surface, a new hope has officially arrived.

Coco Gauff on Saturday fought back from a rough first set in the U.S. Open final to capture her first Grand Slam championship, beating No. 2 seed Aryna Sabalenka, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2.

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After they split the first two sets, Gauff was dominant in the third, winning four straight games and then breaking Sabalenka to go up 5-2. She served out the final game at love, firing a backhand winner up the line to end the match before falling onto her back and bursting into tears in front of a delirious, star-studded capacity crowd. After a few moments, she worked her way into that crowd, embracing her parents and then her coaching staff.

YOU GO COCO! pic.twitter.com/ztI2h0tdul
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 9, 2023

Gauff, 19, became the third American teenager to win the U.S. Open, joining Williams (1999) and Tracy Austin (1979, 1981). It was the second Grand Slam final of her career after she lost in the French Open final in 2022.

For years, ever since making the Wimbledon fourth round as a 15-year-old, Gauff has had tremendous expectations on her shoulders. She spoke about her immediate emotions now that she’s met them.

“Oh, 100 percent a lot of relief, (but) it’s not the biggest emotion. I think it’s honestly the smallest one, and I think that was what the difference was between the French Open (loss in 2022) and now,” she said. “Right now, I’m just feeling happiness and a very, very small bit of relief. Because honestly, at this point, I was doing it for myself and not for other people.”

She continued: “It’s been difficult. It’s been a long journey to this point. I wasn’t a fully developed player, and I still think I have a lot of development to go. I think people were putting a lot of pressure on me to win.”

Throughout the match, even in some of the early points she lost, Gauff routinely showcased her ability to track down shots that initially looked like they might be out of reach. She struggled with her serve early, losing three games on it in the first set, but then lost just one service game the rest of the way.

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In the third set, Gauff played nearly mistake-free tennis, committing just two unforced errors to 16 by Sabalenka. For the match, Gauff had just 19 errors to 46 for Sabalenka, who was clearly frustrated by Gauff’s ability to track down would-be winners and send them back across the net.

“I was just trying to stay in the match,” Gauff said. “I knew she was going to go out there swinging, and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to win this match the way I like to play. I don’t like to play the way that I played today. Running around the court, it’s fun, but, you know, it’s not as fun as hitting winners. I knew going into the match that was going to have to be the way I was going to have to play today against her.”

Said Sabalenka, who had rallied from a set down to defeat another American, Madison Keys, in Thursday’s semifinals to advance to her first-ever U.S. Open final: “I would definitely say that she was moving really well and defending really great, better than anybody else. So, I always had to play an extra ball. (The loss was) a combination of everything. But I would say that today was more because of me. Not the whole match, but, like, there was key moments in the second set I lost, and those moments helped her to turn around the game.”

Gauff’s ride to capturing the title was anything but smooth. Four of her seven matches required three sets; she dropped the first set in her first-round match against Laura Siegemund before recovering, and did the same in the third round to Elise Mertens, the No. 32 seed, before capturing the final two sets to advance.