WHAT HAPPENED: There's no quit in Aryna Sabalenka.
A game away from dropping to 0-3 in her career in US Open semifinals, the reigning Australian Open champion instead bounced back from a first-set bagel. Sabalenka battled all the way to a come-from-behind win against Madison Keys inside Arthur Ashe Stadium on Thursday night, 0-6, 7-6(1), 7-6(5), to advance to Saturday's championship match against Coco Gauff.
Sabalenka hadn't dropped a set en route to the semifinals, and had only lost 21 games in 10 sets played, but was put on the back foot early by a dazzling performance from Keys in the opener. Appearing in her sixth career Grand Slam semifinal, Keys blitzed her way to a one-set lead in a half hour, thanks to a staggering 12 winners to just three unforced errors. Sabalenka, conversely, racked up 12 miscues as she fought to match a red-hot Keys swing-for-swing.
The 2017 US Open runner-up looked on course for a return trip to the final as she found herself three points away from an eye-popping straight-sets win at 6-0, 5-3, 0-15, and later, served for victory at 6-0, 5-4.
But she never reached match point: Three errors and a double fault by the American when she stepped to the line in that game instead handed Sabalenka second life. She took it with both hands: From that point, Sabalenka won 18 of the next 23 points to spin the match around and force a decider.
"It was crazy. I was all over the place," Sabalenka said afterwards. "I was just, like, 'What can I do?' She's playing unbelievable, just crushing everything. I'm not able to do anything. I had zero control in the match.
"I just kept telling myself, 'OK, it's going to be like this? Somebody is just going to play their best tennis?' "
"You just have to keep trying, keep staying there and keep pushing it," she added. "Maybe you'll be able to turn around this game. Lucky me, somehow magically—I don't know how—I was able to turn around this game."
The third set proved a microcosm of the first two: After saving a break point in the opening game, Keys was the first to break and led, 4-2. But, again, Sabalenka showed her mettle. She broke back immediately, and saved two more break points in the eighth game. That set the stage for a scintillating finale in which the two players went head-to-head in a winner-take-all, first to 10-points tiebreak.
Sabalenka saved her best for last. She won the first four points, and four more in a row from 5-3 to 9-3, to finish the 2-hour, 32-minute thriller off (for good) on her third match point.
(In a now-amusing moment, Sabalenka thought she'd won earlier than she had when the tiebreak hit the traditional 7-3 scoreline.)
WHAT IT MEANS: Sabalenka was 1-5 in her career in Grand Slam semifinals entering Thursday's tilt against Keys, and all five of those losses came in three sets.
The triumph was a redeeming win for Sabalenka in more ways than one. Per the WTA Tour, Sabalenka is the third woman in the Open Era to win a Grand Slam semifinal after losing the first set 6-0. The other two were Stefanie Graf, against Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario at Roland Garros in 1992, and Ana Ivanovic, against Daniela Hantuchova at the 2008 Australian Open.
Ironically, both Graf and Ivanovic were beaten in those finals: Graf by Monica Seles, and Ivanovic by Maria Sharapova. Sabalenka will hope for a reversal in fortunes when she takes on Gauff on Saturday, though she trails the 19-year-old 3-2 in their all-time head-to-head.
Their only win this year, though, went Sabalenka's way. She was an emphatic 6-4, 6-0 winner in the quarterfinals in Indian Wells in March.
But it's not a match that the No. 2 seed is thinking about too much.
"She improved a lot. So it's a different player," Sabalenka said. "Going into this final, I think I just have to focus on myself and prepare myself for another fight. No matter what, just keep fighting and keep playing my best and do my best. ... What else can you do? You just have to be there and you have to fight for it."
MATCH POINT: Sabalenka now boasts 50 match wins in 2023: a new personal best. Twenty-three of those wins have come at Grand Slams.
