NEW YORK — Aryna Sabalenka, with a 6-3, 7-6 (3) win over Amanda Anisimova, became the first woman to defend her US Open since Serena Williams in 2014.
After spending the year atop the PIF WTA Rankings, the 27-year-old capped it with her first Slam of the season.
For context, consider this: Of the 11 majors she’s played across the past three years, Sabalenka has now won four, reached three finals, three semifinals and one quarterfinal.
She now has two titles each at the US Open and Australian Opens, reminiscent of Naomi Osaka’s run from 2018-21, except in three years instead of four.
Appropriately, this was Sabalenka’s 100th Grand Slam match-win. Her winning percentage is a gaudy .794, second only to Iga Swiatek among active players.
Anisimova came in with a 6-3 head-to-head record against Sabalenka, but their 10th meeting was something different. In the past, Anisimova’s superb timing, clean ball-stroking and technique kept Sabalenka pinned behind the baseline. Anisimova typically plays an all-or-nothing, hit-or-miss game and in deep runs at Wimbledon and this US Open, it’s been working.
But playing opposite Sabalenka, Anisimova was constantly under pressure and the result was too many errors.
Anisimova finished with 29 unforced errors and only 22 winners. Sabalenka, wisely, took a little bit off her game — she hit only a single ace — and produced a more conservative stat line: 13 winners and 15 unforced errors.
Ultimately, it was Sabalenka’s execution on break-point opportunities, winning five of six.
It was hard not to think back to that Wimbledon final when Anisimova lost the first two games — the last point was a nervous-looking forehand that gave Sabalenka a service break. Ominously, that meant Anisimova had lost all 14 games of the only two major finals of her career.
Sabalenka, having won nine of 11 points, was up 2-0, 30-love when Anisimova settled down. Let the record show that a fierce forehand down-the-line winner gave her a breakthrough game at the 15-minute mark
After a routine hold (and a blistering body serve that nearly hit Sabalenka), Anisimova held — and then broke Sabalenka’s hefty serve again.
Sabalenka came right back with a second break and it was 3-all.
Serving at 3-4, Anisimova hit a double fault, giving Sabalenka two more break points, and some negative body language began to creep in. An errant backhand gave Sabalenka an insurmountable 5-3 lead. She would win the last four games of the set.
Winning the first set is often pivotal, but doing it at the US Open is critical. Of the past 30 women’s champions at the US Open, 28 won the opening set.
Anisimova rallied to hold serve to open the second set and Sabalenka matched that. But serving at 1-all, Sabalenka played some terrific defense, scrambling to retrieve a drop shot that seemed unreachable. That set up another break and she held for a 3-1 lead.
But Anisimova fought back, leveling it at 3-all. But Sabalenka dug in and broke for a 4-3 lead.
With Sabalenka serving for the match at 5-4, 30-all — two points from the title — Anisimova hit a running lob but Sabalenka had hit an overhead into the net. Anisimova broke and held, forcing Sabalenka to serve her way into a tiebreak.
Sabalenka converted her third match point when Anisimova’s service return missed.
Coming in, Sabalenka had won a marvelous 20 of 21 tiebreaks this year. That one loss came in February. The final result was predictable.