The two best players this fortnight in New York will face each other in the
US Open final, so let’s take a look at what might happen here.
Without a doubt, the two best players so far at the US Open have been
Jessica Pegula and
Aryna Sabalenka. They’ve been two of the best players for a while now, basically ever since the Tour moved to North America a couple of weeks ago. Sabalenka started her campaign in Washington and did okay considering it was her first event back from injury.
She wouldn’t do well in Canada but had a tough draw facing Amanda Anisimova early, however, she figured things out in Cincinnati, winning that event by beating none other than Jessica Pegula in the final. Sabalenka has been wonderful so far at the event largely because she’s just that good of a player. After finding form ahead of the US Open, playing well at the event only added more confidence.
She’s never been a player to doubt herself too much but there were things in her game that gave her problems. She wasn’t as consistent from the baseline as she had hoped to be. She didn’t serve as well as she knew she could, but by now she’s grown past all of that to become a really strong player. Sabalenka has continued her superb run at the US Open as she’s now up to 11 matches won in a row. There were some really good players she’s beaten along the way.
Just her run at the US Open featured straight-set wins against Hon, Bronzetti, Mertens, Zheng, and Navarro. The only player who took a set off her was Ekaterina Alexandrova, and it was mostly due to the way the Russian plays, which is very aggressive and attacking. It’s actually pretty similar to how Jessica Pegula plays, which will be an interesting thing to note about this matchup.
Pegula has been equally amazing so far at the US Open but also leading up to it. She’s arguably been the best-performing player since the Olympics and the only reason why she’s not is because her level hasn’t been as high as that of Sabalenka. The only match they played was won by the Belarusian which is why she’s behind her. But overall Pegula has won more matches than Sabalenka leading up to the US Open, winning the Canadian Open and making the Cincinnati Open final.
Jessica Pegula has been the undisputed star of this tournament.
She’s essentially 15-1 in her last 16 matches with that lone defeat coming against Aryna Sabalenka. That’s the best run of her career and it’s not even close. The best indicator of that is just how unbothered she looked like so far in New York.
While some of her matches, most notably the most recent one against Muchova, were tricky, the American cruised through her matches almost nonchalantly, not caring about anything. She’s not a player that generally wears her emotions on her sleeve but she never looks fussed or nervous or anything like that. It’s basically like she’s in the zone just playing tennis and winning matches.
That being said, the matchup against Sabalenka is really tough. It’s the toughest player she could have faced at this very moment because Sabalenka herself has just been that good. It’s not by chance that these two will face each other in the US Open final, they’ve just been the best-performing players leading up to the US Open who were able to hold that level and continue playing well.
Favourite throughout: Can Aryna Sabalenka gain revenge?
Head to Head records
When it comes to the H2H matchup between them, it favours Sabalenka heavily. It’s 5-2 for the Belarusian though there are some really interesting things to note. Sabalenka won both of their clay matches which shouldn’t be that huge of a surprise. Despite Pegula being a pretty solid clay player by US standards, the American does play her best tennis on quicker clay courts like Madrid. She generally prefers quicker surfaces such as hard courts where she’s generally played much better so far in her career. The only match they played on the US Open courts happened in 2020, and Pegula won that one as well.
Now that match is interesting because it did happen at the US Open but it was four years ago when Sabalenka was neither this consistent of a player nor was she this good of a server back then. She’s just too different of a player to make any sort of compelling comparison. In general, on hard courts, it’s 2-2 between them, which is rather interesting to note. On hard courts, Pegula does seem to have a decent chance of putting up a good fight against the Belarusian. She’s been able to do that in the past, though the most recent match does paint a rather bleak picture.
The most recent match happened just a couple of weeks ago in Cincinnati, and it was the final. Sabalenka cruised in that one about as easily as you can, winning in two simple sets. Pegula did look competitive but she didn’t really look like anything of a threat to the Belarusian, who just demonstrated that she was better overall. There are some things about that match that could give Pegula some confidence. She came into that match heavily fatigued from the amount of tennis she played in the past week.
That’s not the case with this US Open run as she mostly cruised in all of her matches. The conditions are also somewhat different in New York, though both courts are on the faster side. It’s a little bit less fast here, which could help her in slowing down the sheer power of Sabalenka but will also give the Belarusian more time to set up her shots, so it’s kind of a wash in that regard.
The match will come down to how the players play and how they match up as players. The styles are somewhat similar because both of them are very aggressive baseliners but there are some distinctions. Sabalenka is the taller player and generally has a better serve. If they both serve as well as they could, the Belarusian would win that battle easily. It’s not even close. Pegula can serve well but she doesn’t generally have the same pace on the serve as Sabalenka, and it’s generally easier to get it back. That’s going to be one of the things that could decide this matchup.
If Sabalenka can get lots of free points from the serve, winning the match would be much easier. The flipside of that was shown in the match against Navarro. Her second serve can be attacked and expect Pegula to be all over that. The same goes the other way around. Pegula’s serve will be attacked regardless, but the second is much slower and will be heavily punished. Sabalenka won over 50% of points behind Pegula’s second serve in the Cincinnati matchup. Meanwhile, she won 31 of 34 points when she hit her first serve, and that determined the match.
Another thing will be how clean they hit from the baseline. It’s no secret that most of these rallies will be rather short. This won’t be a final that will be played over two hours and we’re unlikely to get three sets, and even if we do, we probably will barely crack the two hours. Both will look to close out the rallies swiftly with their baseline play. Sabalenka is again the better overall hitter because she’s able to generate incredible power from the ground up. She’s hitting the forehand at the strongest rate out of all players, and that includes the men, which is a pretty absurd stat.
As we’ve seen from previous matches, there are alleys that Pegula could use to win. One of those is that she produces her absolute best from the baseline. It’s not likely to happen often, but it can happen. Occasionally she gets into that zone and hits the ball incredibly well. The bottom line is that Pegula will need to play her best tennis match ever to win it, while Sabalenka could coast with a really good showing. She doesn’t need her best to beat Pegula because she’s just a better player. Sometimes it’s just how it is.
Overall, though, it promises to be a really close match where margins will make all the difference. They are pretty small margins, but we’ll see if the crowd could prove a factor. They certainly helped Gauff turn around the match last year, and now Sabalenka faces the same problem again, playing against a US player at the US Open. She admitted before this match that she’s ready for it but the ultimate test will be how she plays the match.
Overall, it’s the best possible final we could have gotten, and we’re in store for some really great tennis and a new champion. Whether it’s Sabalenka or Pegula, time will tell, but we know who the crowd would love to cheer on as she hoists the trophy.
