The 2010s at the US Open saw five different men's and eight different women's singles champions, led by Rafael Nadal's four titles and Serena Williams' three in a row from 2012-14. As the decade comes to a close, USOpen.org takes a look back at some of the best moments over the last 10 years at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. In this installment: breakthrough players.
Here is a look at players whose Open success spurred them on to new heights over the course of the past decade.
Angelique Kerber
Before she became a three-time Grand Slam champion—which included an Open win in 2016—and world No. 1, Angelique Kerber was an unseeded 23-year-old ranked No. 92 in the world entering the 2011 US Open.
Having never been past the third round of a major previously, Kerber shocked the world by reaching the semifinals, where she stretched eventual champion Samantha Stosur to a third set.
En route, the German upset two seeded players: No. 12 seed Agnieszka Radwanska in the second round and No. 26 seed (and a future Open champion herself) Flavia Pennetta. She shaved nearly 60 places off of her world ranking as a result.
After losing in the first round of the three prior majors in 2011, Kerber's first splash led to her rise as a stalwart at the top of women's tennis for much of the decade, and she might have foretold what was to come while sitting in the Open's interview room.
"I think it's a beginning. I won five matches here... so I think it's a new start for me, for sure," the German said following her semifinal defeat.
"I think, for sure, now if I go to the Grand Slam, I will try [for] the second week, because I know that I can play with everyone here."
Stan Wawrinka
The 2013 US Open can be called a watershed moment in the career of future men's champion Stan Wawrinka.
The talented Wawrinka, known previously as the second Swiss with a flashy one-handed backhand, reached just three quarterfinals in 35 Slam main draws before arriving at that year's final major.
Entering the event seeded No. 9, having returned to the Top 10 a few months earlier after flirting with the elite ranking back in 2008, Wawrinka reached his first Slam semifinal in New York in 2013, and, ultimately, it proved a sign of things to come.
A Top-10 stalwart for the next five years, Wawrinka upset No. 5 seed Tomas Berdych before he dethroned defending champion Andy Murray in the quarterfinals, and even led Novak Djokovic by two-sets-to-one in the final four.
Though he'd fall to Djokovic in five sets that year, the Swiss garnered a measure of revenge in the very next major, beating Djokovic in the quarterfinals en route to winning his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open. He'd later add another Slam to his trophy case by beating the Serb to win the 2015 French Open.
Coincidentally, three of Wawrinka's four major wins over Djokovic have come in New York: a classic championship match in 2016 added a third Slam title to the Swiss' resume, and he also advanced past Djokovic in a retirement in the fourth round this past year.
Marin Cilic
A two-time Open quarterfinalist before he hoisted the trophy in 2014, Marin Cilic's run to his first Grand Slam title cemented his status as a leading threat on the ATP Tour.
The first Croatian to win a major since his coach, Goran Ivanisevic, won the 2001 Wimbledon title, Cilic and Kei Nishikori took part in a 2014 men's final that had some modern history attached to it.
By virtue of their victories over Roger Federer and Djokovic, respectively, in the semifinals, the duo ensured that their Open final was the lone major championship to not feature at least one member of the 'Big 4' in this decade.
After winning in New York, the Croatian has become a regular feature in the late stages of Slams, and he has played his part in some of the game's biggest moments.
Cilic has reached two more major finals to date since winning his lone Slam—Wimbledon in 2017 and the Australian Open in 2018—and reached a career-best ranking of world No. 3 after finishing runner-up in Melbourne.
He helped Croatia win the Davis Cup in 2018, and after winning his 300th match to claim Open glory, became the 10th active player to reach 500 match wins this fall.
Kei Nishikori
Despite finishing runner-up to Cilic, the 2014 Open also proved to be a springboard for Nishikori, who became the first Japanese man in 81 years to reach the semifinals at a major since Jiro Sato did so at the1933 French Championships.
The surge began for the Japanese earlier in the tournament, when he scored his first career win against Wawrinka in the quarterfinals to cement his return to the world's Top 10, before beating Djokovic to become the first Asian man to reach a Slam final.
That result helped launch him to a career-high ranking of world No. 4 in 2015, and since then, Nishikori has had some of his best Slam successes at the Open.
He has reached two more semifinals in New York in the years since, losing to eventual champions Wawrinka (2016) and Djokovic (2018).
Johanna Konta
With just one main-draw major victory on her resume entering the 2015 Open, Johanna Konta's mid-career surge began when she was a 24-year-old qualifier in Flushing Meadows.
Konta won 16 straight matches in the summer of 2015, six of which came at that Open, as she reached the fourth round of a Slam for the first time in her career.
The Brit defeated two seeded players en route to her first Round of 16 at a Slam, which included a marathon, 3-hour, 23-minute victory against No. 9 seed Garbiñe Muguruza in the second round—which, at the time, was the longest women's match at the US Open since the tiebreak was introduced in 1970.
From there, Konta cemented herself as "first British woman since" in a host of the game's achievements: she ultimately saw her ranking skyrocket from world No. 150 earlier in 2015 to a career-high of No. 4 in 2017.
She appeared in a pair of Slam semifinals, and won the 2017 Miami Open in the same season that she thrilled her home fans by reaching the final four at Wimbledon.
After a downturn in 2018, Konta bounced back into the Top 20 with a strong 2019, in which she reached another Slam semifinal in Paris and two quarterfinals, including the US Open.
Anastasija Sevastova
You can't tell the story of Anastasija Sevastova's "two careers" without the US Open.
A talented player to watch in her early 20s, Sevastova was burned out by the time she was 23 and spent about 18 months away from the sport in retirement.
After returning to the professional game in January 2015, the Latvian played her first Slam since retirement in the qualifying draw of the 2015 Open, but the next year was when it all truly changed for her.
Ranked world No. 48, Sevastova stunned reigning French Open champion and No. 3 seed Muguruza in the second round en route to her first-ever Grand Slam quarterfinal, where she was defeated by eventual runner-up Caroline Wozniacki.
The Latvian reached a career-best ranking of No. 36 during her "first" career, but her first Open quarterfinal vaulted her to what was a new high of No. 32, and she's since followed that up with even greater success in Flushing Meadows.
Sevastova returned to the US Open quarterfinals in 2017, losing to eventual champion Sloane Stephens, and went one round better in 2018, before bowing out to Serena Williams in her first major semifinal.
Fresh off the final four of the Open in 2018, she reached her biggest-ever final at the WTA event in Beijing and a career-best ranking of world No. 11 by the end of that season.
Karolina Pliskova
At 22, Karolina Pliskova first served notice with a statement win over former world No. 1 Ana Ivanovic in the second round of the 2014 Open, but the Czech's world-beating run to the 2016 final won't be forgotten as one of the best of the decade.
With a fourth-round victory over Venus Williams, in which she saved match point, and a semifinal victory over Serena Williams, Pliskova became the sixth player to beat both Williams sisters at the same tournament, joining Steffi Graf, Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters.
"I mean, there is not more than to beat both sisters in one tournament in New York," Pliskova said at the time. "For me, it's something really special."
Finishing runner-up to Kerber at the 2016 Open—her first second-week showing at a Slam—propelled Pliskova to the top of women's tennis.
The current world No. 2 has been ranked inside the WTA's Top 10 to end each of the past four years, and she reached the No. 1 ranking in the summer of 2017.
Naomi Osaka
Naomi Osaka arrived at the 2018 US Open as a rising star in women's tennis, but by the time she left, she was a global superstar.
Seeded No. 20 entering the Open, Osaka stormed into the world's Top 10 by becoming the first Japanese woman to play in—and win—a Grand Slam final in a stunning victory over Serena Williams. She has yet to look back.
Osaka followed up her win in New York with her second major title at the 2019 Australian Open, becoming the first woman to win consecutive Slam singles titles since Serena Williams in 2015, and the first maiden Slam winner to win a second consecutive championship since Jennifer Capriati in 2001.
She also rose to the world No. 1 ranking as a result of her title in Melbourne, becoming the first Asian woman to be ranked in the top spot.
Bianca Andreescu
The teenager, who rounds out our breakthrough players of the decade, was the Cinderella story that never struck midnight.
Bianca Andreescu became the latest young star to be coronated at the Open, as she followed up Osaka's victory over Serena Williams with one of her own just 12 months later.
While it's too soon to tell just how high the 2019 champion will climb in her career, her stunning victory in the last women's singles final of the decade demonstrates she certainly could herald more.
In October, she reached a career-high ranking of No. 4, the best ever for a Canadian woman, and in December, she became the first tennis player to win the prestigious Lou Marsh Trophy, given to Canada's top athlete annually through a vote by journalists.
Also named the WTA Newcomer of the Year to end 2019, Andreescu is primed to be one of a group of players to lead women's tennis into the next decade and beyond.
