Buddy-buddy final longest of long shots
You always want that first time to be special.
For Madison Keys and Sloane Stephens, who clearly have a grrrl-mance going on — close pals off the court — the U.S. Open final is simultaneously debut and convergence. And intimately special.
Neither has been there before at a Grand Slam. Each has emerged from injury and surgery and career reset.
Both are Exhibit A-times-two in a new dawning of American female tennis.
And not a one of them carries the surname Williams.
In the lead-up to this Open — indeed, in the lead-up to every major this season — the cognoscenti talk had been all about the Next Gen, that cohort of male studs expected to challenge and perchance overtake their illustrious elders. That seemed a particularly ripe storyline in Flushing Meadows with top marquee players sidelined for their various hurts or eliminated early in the tournament.
Instead, the hotshots were cooled down and rudely set aside, most of the particularly ballyhooed young’uns sent packing before the first week of the tournament was done.
Meanwhile, it was the sisterhood of the travelling tennis dresses who were making a mark out in Queens, knocking off top seeds.
Also legends, when Venus Williams was eliminated by Stephens under the lights on Thursday evening.
Now, a completely Born in the U.S.A. semifinal bracket has been reduced to two 20-somethings, a pair of African-American females — six decades after Althea Gibson won her first U.S. Open — who’ve known each other since juniors, who’ve each been cast at various points of their tennis arcs as The Next Big Thing in the women’s game and who have finally, delightedly, with mutual pleasure, arrived.
This is their moment and perhaps a transitional change in the game. Certainly from the always self-absorbed American perspective. But hey, there are seven red-white-andblue women in the top 50 of the world rankings — a number which will go up when the new rankings are released Monday — so they’ve got legitimate reason to crow.
Just look at all the fuss Canadians made about getting one homegrown teenager into the men’s fourth round.
And the U.S. has pretty much defined women’s tennis for the past two decades, via the Williamses. Which is why the hand-wringers have been keening with anxiety as Venus approaches the big 4-0 and Serena, at 35, experiences first-time mommyhood (though she’s been quite firm about returning to her profession).
“I just don’t want anyone to ever ask me about the state of American tennis ever again,” Stephens, 24, said after besting Venus in their wildly erratic three-setter, concluding in a thrilling third frame when the younger player’s extraordinary defensive abilities trumped all the shotmaking the older player could throw at her.
Keys, upon dumping compatriot CoCo Vandeweghe, echoed the sentiment. “American women are doing really well right now. I think this tournament has just shown that.”
It was just in May, flying back from the French Open — ousted in the second round — to undergo surgery on her left wrist for the second time in 10 months (for removal of scar tissue) that Keys, 22, seriously wondered where her career was headed, with no fanciful ideas of an abrupt turnaround rising straight ahead.
“Both times I went in for surgery, it was kind of a relief. Well, the first one, I was in lots of pain. So I came out and I felt a lot better. Then the second time, hearing there was still something going on, so I wasn’t crazy, was kind of a relief to me. Since then it’s been a big weight off my shoulders and I’m playing really free. More than anything I’m just really, really enjoying my time on the court. That’s been a massive part of why I have been playing well.”
On the Stephens side of the medical ledger, 11 months away to recover from surgery for a fractured foot. First tournament back, Wimbledon, bounced in the first round. In Washington, on the WTA Tour, bounced in the first round. She joked to reporters (but wasn’t really joking): “Eventually I’m going to be somebody and then I’m going to be beat two people in a row.”
Never figured it would be the next week, at the Rogers Cup in Toronto, where she reached the semis. Ditto a week later in Cincinnati.
And never in her dreams — except, sure, in her dreams — did Stephens visualize herself in the U.S. Open final, certainly not while sprawling on the couch at home, watching the Australian Open on TV, her “peg leg” in a cast, completely immobile.
That was only in January. Stunning that it was deftness on her feet, stalwart defensive play — retrieving the irretrievable — that was such a crucial component of her victory over Williams.
Keys: “I was actually just laughing and thinking: Who would have thought in Australia that Sloane and I would be the finalists at the U.S. Open? Neither one of us were playing at that time, both just having surgeries.
“So it’s really amazing. I have known Sloane for a long time and she’s a close friend of me. So to be able to play her in both of our first finals is a really special moment, especially with everything that we have gone through this year.”
On Saturday, Stephens and Keys — both of them South Floridians — will bring immense knowledge of each other onto the court, a familiarity that has bred deep friendship and, via their Fed Cup play, professional camaraderie, being on the same side.
They go to dinner, hang out, text endlessly.
“I have known her for a long time,” said Stephens, who couldn’t recall a time when she didn’t know Keys. “She’s probably one of my closest friends on the tour. Love her to death.’’
Power versus defence, most likely, though Stephens is no shrinking violet on her groundstrokes either.
“I’m just happy to be playing. Happy to be competing. Happy to be in this position. Now, no one can ever take (it) away. Whether I win the tournament or not, I’m a Grand Slam finalist and no one will be able to take that away from me.”
But she adds: “It’s not easy playing a friend.”
Just ask the Williamses how easy it was playing a sister.