Key events
Two forehands, no backhands, serves from both sides. Teo Davidov is treating the tennis world to a wildly unorthodox style – and proving it’s more than a parlor trick. Drew Lawrence has more:
Also notable about this year’s tournament: the men’s and women’s semi-finals will both feature two Americans.
Tumaini Carayol has a good read on Frances Tiafoe v Ben Shelton, the marquee All-American men’s semi-final:
This is the first time since 1975 (!!!) that the top four seeds will appear in the US Open women’s semi-finals.
Fifty-one years ago, Billie Jean King was the reigning champion, and the tournament was being played on clay for the first time after years on grass. (It switched to hardcourt three years later.) Those semi-finals were Chris Evert v Martina Navratilova and Virginia Wade v Evonne Goolagong Cawley. Evert, the top seed, would beat the fourth-seeded Cawley for her first US Open title.
Preamble
Good evening, tennis fans. The countdown is on for tonight’s US Open’s women’s semi-finals. Aryna Sabalenka, the two-time defending champion, faces American Jessica Pegula in the first match at Arthur Ashe Stadium. They’ll be followed by Coco Gauff, the 2023 winner, taking on Elena Rybakina, the new world No 1.
The top-seeded Sabalenka has had a rocky few months since winning the spring Sunshine Double at Indian Wells and Miami. She exited in the quarter-finals at Roland Garros and the fourth round at Wimbledon, and fell in the last 16 at both Toronto and Cincinnati on the summer hardcourt swing. She’s lost her No 1 ranking – more on that later – and went down to the wire in the last round against Linda Noskova before mounting a ferocious comeback in the final set.
Standing in between Sabalenka and a fourth consecutive US Open final: third-seeded Jessica Pegula. The 32-year-old defeated fellow American Emma Navarro in three sets to reach her third straight semi-final at Flushing Meadows. These two are familiar foes on this court: they met in the 2024 final and the 2025 semi-final, with Sabalenka winning both times. Pegula did get the upper hand in their most recent meeting in June, on grass in the Berlin semi-final, but Sabalenka has a 5-3 advantage on outdoor hardcourts.
In the second semi-final, Rybakina will play her first match since officially earning the world No 1 ranking with her quarter-final win over Zheng Qinwen. She dethroned Sabalenka, who had held the position for 99 successive weeks, to continue a banner year that began with the Australian Open crown in January and includes two titles so far. This is already Rybakina’s best US Open performance – before this year, she had never advanced beyond the fourth round.
Her opponent is no stranger to the New York stage. The fourth-seeded Gauff reached the semi-finals with a remarkable comeback win over Mirra Andreeva. After struggling with her serve and forehand errors through the first two sets, she saved two match points in the second-set tie-break then rolled in the third. She is in the last four at the US Open for the first time since 2023, when she won her first grand slam title. Gauff lost their most recent meeting in Toronto, but the quarter-final proved she is capable of pulling out results even when down.
Ella will be here shortly. In the meantime, catch up on how the four semi-finalists made it this far:
Leave a Reply