Aryna Sabalenka Wards Off Emma Navarro To Zoom Into Second Successive US Open Final

Second seed Aryna Sabalenka sealed a berth in her second consecutive US Open final with a hard-fought 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) win over 13th seed Emma Navarro at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday (September 6, 2024). Sabalenka needed 90 minutes to ward off surging American Navarro, who was contesting her first Grand Slam semi-final and pushed the second set into a tie-break from 5-3 down. (Full Coverage | More Tennis News)

Former world number one Sabalenka, who finished runner-up to Coco Gauff at last year's US Open, is the first woman to reach successive US Open finals since Serena Williams did it in 2018 and 2019. The 26-year-old has reached all four hard-court Major finals over the last two seasons.

After an early exchange of breaks, Sabalenka appeared to have the last-four match under control for the first set-and-a-half. With spectacular power shots from all directions, Sabalenka pocketed the first set, where her 16 winners dwarfed Navarro’s eight.

In the second set, Sabalenka broke to take a 3-2 lead and served for the match at 5-4. However, Navarro used excellent speed and well-timed passing shots to jolt the second seed. A forehand return winner gave Navarro double break point, and she broke back to level 5-5 after Sabalenka faltered on a backhand.

In the tie-break, Sabalenka double faulted to fall behind 0-2, and a third set became a distinct possibility. But Sabalenka regrouped, pulled off a forehand winner to get off the mark in the breaker, and them firmly wrested back the control for good.

Sabalenka is now just one win away from becoming the first woman to win both hard-court Grand Slam titles in the same year since Angelique Kerber clinched the Australian Open and US Open titles in 2016. The Belarusian won her second straight Australian Open title earlier this year.

She will vie for the women's singles trophy on Sunday against the victor of the second semi-final between No. 6 Jessica Pegula of USA and unseeded Karolina Muchova of the Czech Republic.

With her semi-final win, Sabalenka avenged a defeat to Navarro in their previous hard-court meeting, which was at Indian Wells earlier this year. Sabalenka also beat Navarro on the clay of Roland Garros this season and leads the overall head-to-head record 2-1.

The world number two has now won 28 back-to-back hard-court Grand Slam matches against players ranked outside the top 10. That is the longest such winning streak since Victoria Azarenka won 29 straight hard-court Major matches against players ranked outside the top 10 between the 2012 and 2014 Australian Opens.