Gauff and Sabalenka in the US Open final

(Patria) - Second and sixth seeds, Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka and American Coco Gauff will compete for the US Open title, after defeating their semi-final opponents last night - Madison Keys and Karolina Muchova.

Gauff defeated the Czech tennis player 6-4, 7-5 in the first semi-final, and then Sabalenka prevented an all-American final by beating Keys 0-6, 7-6 (1), 7-6 (5).

Madison Keys, the 2017 US Open finalist, started the match brilliantly. She won game after game, leaving an indisposed Sabalenka with no chance, and after half an hour of play, she was only one set away from another all-American showdown for the title, just like the one against Sloane Stephens six years ago, which she lost.

Sabalenka won her first game after 36 minutes. However, she was still far from getting back into the match. She was even further when Keys led 4-2 in the second set, and at 5-3 she had a serve to win.

And then, suddenly, the tennis player who will be at the top of the WTA singles rankings on Monday appeared at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Sabalenka won 12 points in a row to take a 6-5 lead. She also had two set points on Keys' serve (15-40), but the American, with two aces, an unreturnable serve, and good attack, forced a tie-break.

There was no suspense in the decisive game. Sabalenka left Keys with one point and took the match to the third set and into a new day.

Before the third set, Keys sought help from a physiotherapist due to pain in her left thigh muscle, and after receiving a bandage around the painful area, she continued the fight without visible problems, Hina reports.

Sabalenka had a chance for a break in the first game, but remained without the advantage, and after two convincing games on her serve, she lost her serve in the sixth game.

However, Keys lost the advantage she had gained in the next game. In the end, the decision on who would reach the final was left to another tie-break, with the difference that in this one, at least 10 points had to be won to win.

The Belarusian won the first four, before Keys managed to win two points and briefly stop Sabalenka's momentum.

At 6-3, the Belarusian tennis player won a point and started celebrating the victory. But she quickly realized that she hadn't reached the finish line yet, so she quickly won two more points and got six match points. Keys managed to save two, but not the third.

The third consecutive semi-final in Flushing Meadows proved to be lucky for the Belarusian. After being defeated in three sets by Leylah Fernandez in 2021, and Iga Swiatek repeating the same a year later, Sabalenka managed to break that streak against Madison Keys, who came within one service game of victory.

This year's Australian Open winner will compete for a Grand Slam trophy for the second time in her career and will have the opportunity to cap her rise to world number 1 with a US Open title.

SATURDAY IS SET. pic.twitter.com/I2cZBvJ1Ma

— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 8, 2023

In the second semi-final, Coco Gauff defeated Czech Karolina Muchova 6-4, 7-5. It was their second match in the last three weeks, and just as she did in the Cincinnati tournament final, Gauff won in two sets.

The first set of the match was not rich in good shots but in errors from both players. Muchova made more, which Gauff used to take a 5-1 lead with two breaks.

However, the Czech then started to find the right tactics and, with the help of her opponent, made up for the deficit and reached 4-5 and a serve to continue the first set.

Then she started making mistakes again, lost the point in the tenth game, and ceded the lead in the first set to Gauff.

After the first game of the second set, a bizarre scene occurred. Three environmental activists wearing t-shirts with the slogan "End Fossil Fuels" disrupted the match with their shouts and slogans. Security guards and police could not remove them from the stands for a long time because they chained themselves to the seats.

The tennis players waited for about twenty minutes for the match to continue near the court, and then they were sent to the locker room, where they spent another similar amount of time.

The match resumed after a 50-minute break, which clearly benefited both players, as both played much better than in the first set. Both held their serves until the eighth game, when Gauff got a break and a serve to win.

In the ninth game, she got her first match point, but Muchova managed to neutralize it, get a break, and continue the fight.

Gauff waited until the 12th game for new match points. She had 15-40, but Muchova saved herself, just as she did on the next two advantages for the 19-year-old American.

However, the longest point of the match followed, in which Gauff, after 40 shots, got her sixth match point. She capitalized on Muchova's backhand error and could finally start celebrating her first US Open final and second Grand Slam final after last year's Roland Garros.