USA TODAY International Edition
Pennetta beats Vinci in U. S. Open final
Wins 1st Grand slam, announces retirement
Flavia Pennetta
NEW YORK knows how to go out in style.
The 33- year- old Italian, playing in her first Grand Slam final, hoisted the U. S. Open trophy on Saturday after beating countrywoman Roberta Vinci 7- 6( 4), 6- 2, then promptly announced her pending retirement, a major title finally in hand.
“This is the way I would like to say goodbye to tennis,” Pennetta said on court in an interview after the win. She later said she’d play through the end of the year. “This one was my last match at the U. S. Open.”
In a tournament beset by upsets — including Serena Williams’ shocker in the semifinals — it’s Pennetta, the world No. 26, who captured an 11th career title and banked $ 3.3 million, just shy of a third of the $ 10.5 million she’s made in a 15- year career in women’s tennis.
“I mean, with this, winning today, my life is perfect,” a smiling Pennetta said. “I cannot say something different. Perfect.”
It marked just the sixth time in the Open era that two first- time major finalists faced off against one another. Pennetta and Vinci, 32, combined to make up the oldest Grand Slam final in women’s tennis history, at 66 years and 19 days.
No woman had won her first Grand Slam after the age of 30 until Saturday. Pennetta will move up to world No. 8 in Monday’s rankings, a career high.
“If I have to dream about how I want to stop playing, this is the perfect way,” Pennetta added, saying she’ll play events in Wuhan, China, and Beijing. She is now in contention to qualify for the WTA Finals, played at the end of October in Singapore.
Pennetta and Vinci have been close friends since they were little girls, sharing a room at a tennis academy and teaming up to win the 1999 French Open girls’ doubles title. After the final, the two sat side by side on court, laughing and hugging. It was then that Pennetta informed Vinci of her plan to retire at the end of the year.
“I didn’t expect that,” Vinci said of Pennetta’s retirement plans.
Pennetta is the most unlikely of major winners since Marion Bartoli, then the No. 15 seed, captured an equally depleted Wimbledon draw in 2013. Bartoli retired a few weeks later in Cincinnati that summer.
It was a first for a Grand Slam final in a variety of ways, including the first time two Italian women met in a major decider and the first time at the U. S. Open that both finalists were outside the top 20.
Pennetta struck first breaking to go up 3- 2 and then holding for 4- 2. But Vinci would battle back, behind a flurry of backhand slices that would give her a 5- 4 lead. Pennetta steadied herself and the two faced off in a tiebreak for the first time in 10 career meetings, Pennetta emerging the winner 7- 4 when Vinci netted a forehand return into the net.
In the second set, Pennetta broke for 4- 0 and never looked back.
She would finish in style, knocking a backhand winner up the line, hitting an overhead smash and then pummeling a forehand into the open court on championship point, tossing her racket into the air and thrusting her arms overhead after the win.
There was no followup to Vinci’s earth- shattering win over Williams, the world No. 1 who was chasing history in the calendar Grand Slam at the U. S. Open. Many called Vinci’s 2- 6, 6- 4, 6- 4 stunner Saturday over the American one of the biggest upsets in tennis history, including Vinci herself.
Pennetta, however, had an upset of her own, shocking No. 2 seed Simona Halep in the other semifinal and advancing a step further than her former careerbest showing at a major, the final four in New York in 2013.