American friends pursue Open dream
Stephens and Keys face final after injury woes Murray and Hingis on march in mixed doubles
This US Open has thrown up some bizarre storylines, but tonight’s women’s final – which brings together two young American talents in Sloane Stephens and Madison Keys – surely tops the lot.
Neither was even playing at the start of the season because of surgery. Keys came back in March, after having her troublesome left wrist operated on for the second time. Stephens did not play until Wimbledon, having spent most of the year with her left foot in a special boot.
But on Thursday – which felt like prom night for American tennis – they each overcame an older compatriot to reach their first major final. Keys’s journey, against an outof-sorts Coco Vandeweghe, was more straightforward as she completed a 6-1, 6-2 win in 66 minutes.
Stephens needed a whole extra hour – and depths of character she may not even have known she possessed – to oust Venus Williams 6-1, 0-6, 7-5.
Stephens’s charge here is reminiscent of Kim Clijsters’ title-winning campaign in 2009, even if Clijsters had been voluntarily absent because of motherhood rather than injury. If anything, though, the Stephens story seems the more extraordinary. Where Clijsters had won the US Open in 2005, Stephens – who is 24 – had given the impression of an unfulfilled talent. Where Clijsters came into the tournament unseeded, Stephens barely owned a world ranking, having stood at
No 957 at the
end of July.
Now she is one win away from the US Open title, and one of her old training partners believes that her time on the sidelines has reinvigorated a stagnant career. “You don’t want injuries,” said Jill Craybas in an interview with the Tennis Podcast. “But sometimes they can be a blessing in disguise. That was the case for Sloane. I would get frustrated because things came so easily to her that it looked lazy. But now she is shining.”
As for Keys, her whole season has been a fight to re-establish herself after wrist surgery in November, which needed a second procedure in May to release a trapped nerve. Wrists have become a hotspot for tennis players, probably because of the ferocious levels of topspin they employ. But Keys demonstrated a month ago that she had overcome her trauma, blitzing the Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza on the way to the title in Stanford.
There is increasingly a camaraderie between these young American women. After beating Vandeweghe in the Stanford final, Keys jumped into her opponent’s arms and then sat on her lap. Now it will be interesting to see how this latest pair of old friends and rivals react to the pressure of playing for a first major, not to mention the £2.65million prize.as Stephens put it: “I have known her [Keys] for a long time. She’s probably one of my closest friends on tour. I love her to death.”
When Keys’s turn came, she explained that their relationship has deepened after a year of shared frustrations. “I remember I saw her before she went to Brisbane [in January],” said Keys, who is 22.
“She got there, and all of a sudden, I saw that she came back. I was like, ‘Hey, what’s up? Why are you back in LA?’ She said, ‘Unfortunately I have to have surgery.’ And then I think we both texted each other and said, ‘This really sucks’.
“From then on, I have always been talking to her. I think we have really helped each other. We know what the other was going through.”
As we wait for the denouement, Stephens wants to make one thing clear. She is fed up of hearing that American tennis – which has not had a male grand-slam champion since 2003 – is over-reliant on the Williams sisters.
“I don’t want anyone to ever ask me about the state of American tennis ever again,” she said. “The proof is in the pudding. Four Americans in the semi-finals and a Fed Cup final. Everyone that’s involved with the United States Tennis Association can be proud.”
Meanwhile, Jamie Murray and Martina Hingis are into today’s mixed-doubles final after squeezing past Vandeweghe and Horia Tecau. Murray and Hingis have played together nine times since teaming up just before Wimbledon, and won the lot. Hingis (who had earlier won the ladies’ doubles semi-final with Yung-jan Chan) produced a strong finish to seal a 6-4, 7-6 victory and earn a showdown with Michael Venus and Haoching Chan.
In the men’s singles, 31-year-old South African Kevin Anderson reached the final after beating Spain’s Pablo Carreno-busta 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.