WHAT HAPPENED: Emma Navarro showed off a new facet of her ascendant game on Friday afternoon in Louis Armstrong Stadium: grit. The rising 23-year-old American clawed and battled in a war of wills, fighting back from a third-set deficit against fellow Top 20 player Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine to advance to her first fourth round at the US Open with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 victory. There Navarro will meet her compatriot, Coco Gauff, whom she upset earlier this summer on the grass at Wimbledon.
Navarro, up to No. 12 in the WTA rankings, was born in New York City. Prior to this campaign, she had never won a match in Flushing Meadows. After Navarro won the opening set, Kostyuk began to play much more aggressively, pushing the smaller Navarro around the court and smacking groundstroke winners. In a tense final set, the Ukrainian appeared to have wrested control of the match, up 3-1. But in a nervy game with multiple deuces, in which Kostyuk had several opportunities to take a 4-2 lead, Navarro dug in and broke back to draw even in the set, delighting the home crowd.
The American, suddenly reinvigorated, then won the last four games of the match, though none of them were easy. Navarro outlasted Kostyuk, whom she beat just two weeks ago in a tight two-setter in Toronto, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, to move on.
“I got chills there at the end,” Navarro told Mary Joe Fernandez of ESPN on court after her win. “It’s so surreal playing here in New York City, the city I was born in.”
Navarro, who has played five tournaments in five weeks, nonetheless said she’s up for more. “It’s been a long season,” she continued, “but I’m ready to rock.”
WHAT IT MEANS: Navarro, who won the NCAA championship at University of Virginia, has been on an incredible roll this year. She has the most wins on tour after No. 1 Iga Swiatek (43) and has wins over No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka and the former major winners Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff at Wimbledon, where she reached the quarterfinals. In Toronto, the hard-court warmup before the Open, Navarro advanced to her first WTA 1000 semifinal. A year ago, Navarro was ranked outside the Top 100 and had won only one match at a major.
About playing Gauff in the next round, Navarro said: “I’m really excited to play Coco again. I got to know her a bit at the Olympics and she’s an awesome girl. It’s pretty cool to have two Americans playing each other in the fourth round of a Grand Slam.”
Navarro now owns nine wins over Top 20 players.
Kostyuk, 22, from Kyiv, Ukraine, has never advanced beyond the third round in New York, though she did reach the quarterfinals at this year’s Australian Open.
MATCH POINT: Navarro had coasted through her first two matches at the Open, losing a total of just four games. Friday’s match was a much stiffer challenge; in fact, Navarro won the match but won fewer points overall (85) than her opponent Kostyuk (86).
