WHAT HAPPENED: As pressure mounts and the target on Bianca Andreescu's back grows larger with each consecutive win, one would think the 19-year-old Canadian would start to show some cracks in her armor.
Think again.
Andreescu powered past Switzerland's Belinda Bencic and into her her maiden Grand Slam final with yet another electrifying performance on Thursday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium, 7-6, 7-5.
Make it 13 consecutive victories in a row for Andreescu—and the winning streak doesn't even begin to tell the story of the Canadian's remarkable rise in 2019. Ranked well outside the Top 150 when the season began, Andreescu now stands one victory from putting the finishing touches on one of the greatest Grand Slam success stories of the last two decades.
"If someone told me a year ago that I'd be in the finals of the US Open this year, I'd tell them 'You're crazy,'" Andreescu said on court after the match.
Crazy good is more like it.
Not since a 17-year-old Venus Williams crashed through the gates of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens in 1997 has a player—male or female—been able to reach the final in her US Open singles debut. Andreescu has matched that achievement, and becomes just the third player to reach the final in her US Open main-draw debut.
She did it the hard way, against a determined adversary.
Andreescu saved all six of the break points she faced in a tense opening set and reeled off eight points in succession to get from 6-5, 15-30 to 5-0 up in the first-set tiebreaker. It was this type of timely tennis that frustrated Bencic all evening. The Swiss, playing her first major semifinal, missed on 10 of her 13 break point opportunities and just didn't have the firepower to keep Andreescu at bay when it counted most.
Bencic rebounded to win three consecutive points in the tiebreaker, but she couldn't climb all the way back. Andreescu took the final two points to seal the opening set in 67 minutes.
Bencic didn't give up the chase, however. The 23-year-old Swiss hit a purple patch early in the second set and took advantage of a lull from the Canadian to break in the opening game of the set. She continued to connect on her ground strokes, pushing Andreescu around. After four consecutive breaks of serve in the middle of the set Bencic found herself in front, 5-3.
It could have been the beginning of an epic comeback. It turned out to be the beginning of the end.
Andreescu ramped up her game and pushed back, setting the tone for a dramatic stretch of games that would take her to the brink of victory. The Canadian held serve and broke to draw even at 5-5 on a Bencic double-fault. She then held for 6-5 to put the pressure squarely on Bencic's shoulders.
The Swiss tried, but couldn't find a way out of her tailspin.
Bencic saved two match points and eventually earned a game point to force a second-set tiebreaker, but the relentless Andreescu seized the final three points to clinch the victory in two hours and 13 minutes.
"It's just surreal," Andreescu said afterwards. "I really don't know what to say. It's a dream come true."
WHAT IT MEANS: Andreescu moves on to face 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams in the final for the second time this summer. The Canadian earned a victory over the 37-year-old in the Rogers Cup final in Toronto in August when Williams was forced to retire after four games with a back injury.
Saturday's final will have significant historical implications, with Williams bidding to tie Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 major singles titles and Andreescu gunning to become the first player in the Open era to claim the title in her US Open debut. In her fourth Grand Slam appearance overall, Andreescu is bidding to join Monica Seles as one of two players to have won a major title with less than five Grand Slam main-draw appearances.
Seles won Roland Garros in 1990, also in her fourth Grand Slam appearance.
MATCH POINT: In her brief but distinguished career, Andreescu has never lost a match against a Top 10 player. Andreescu is 7-0 overall against the Top 10. Williams enters the final with a ranking of No.8.
