2023 US Open Women's Final: (2) ARYNA Sabalenka vs (6) COCO Gauff

[martinezownsclay]

Coco was still hitting quite hard. I think she was smart enough to know simply trying to outblast Sabalenka would be a losing strategy. She did not play passively, she toned down the agression some, but was playing smart for the opponent, and it worked in the end.

 

[paolo2143]

Sabalenka just frustrates me as she has all the weapons needed to dominate weapons tennis but she is just so mentally fragile and can implode at a moment's notice.

If she had the mental fortitude of likes of Evert, Navratilova, Graf & Williams at their peak she would be winning slam after slam.

 

[medieval_remnant]

Sabalenka just frustrates me as she has all the weapons needed to dominate weapons tennis but she is just so mentally fragile and can implode at a moment's notice.

If she had the mental fortitude of likes of Evert, Navratilova, Graf & Williams at their peak she would be winning slam after slam.

may not be mental. She's lanky and her mechanics can break down

 

[Benf15harp]

This is really idiotic. You believe that Sabalenka would take any bribe over winning another slam + $3 million in prize money? People and their conspiracy theories these days!

Happens ALL the time.

 

[intrepidish]

Happens ALL the time.

What happens all the time?

 

[insideguy]

Sabalenka just frustrates me as she has all the weapons needed to dominate weapons tennis but she is just so mentally fragile and can implode at a moment's notice.

If she had the mental fortitude of likes of Evert, Navratilova, Graf & Williams at their peak she would be winning slam after slam.

She plays nothing like those players. She plays high risk tennis. You can’t play like that and not expect to go into slumps

 

[martinezownsclay]

Sabalenka just frustrates me as she has all the weapons needed to dominate weapons tennis but she is just so mentally fragile and can implode at a moment's notice.

If she had the mental fortitude of likes of Evert, Navratilova, Graf & Williams at their peak she would be winning slam after slam.

I agree she could have won more already, but she isn't going to dominate like those even in a best case scenario. She is way too one dimensional for that level of dominance. None of those have a one dimensional game. Some wrongly conclude Graf and Serena did, but anyone who understands the game and watched them play at their peak realize Serena was far more than just a monstrous power player, server, and athlete, and Graf was far more than just the most dominant forehand and a gazelle on the court.

 

[Mainad]

In winning the 2023 US Open, Coco Gauff becomes:

1. The 1st American woman to win the title since 2017 (Sloane Stephens).
2. The 6th black American player to win the title (after Althea Gibson, Arthur Ashe, the Williams sisters, Sloane Stephens).
3. The 5th black American woman to win the title (after Gibson, the Williams sisters, Stephens).
4. The 3rd teenage American woman to win the title in the Open Era (after Tracy Austin, Serena Williams).
5. The 9th teenage woman to win the title in the Open Era (after Tracy Austin, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Martina Hingis, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Bianca Andreescu, Emma Raducanu).
6. One of 18 active women players to have won at least 1 title at Grand Slam level.
7. One of 60 women players to have won at least 1 Grand Slam title in the Open Era.
8. One of 131 women players to have won at least 1 Grand Slam title in the history of tennis.

 

[Mainad]

Sabalenka just frustrates me as she has all the weapons needed to dominate weapons tennis but she is just so mentally fragile and can implode at a moment's notice.

If she had the mental fortitude of likes of Evert, Navratilova, Graf & Williams at their peak she would be winning slam after slam.

This.

The number of times I have seen her play and once she gets the advantage, as in the opening set of yesterday's final, she then collapses into an error machine and gives it all away!!

IMO she should have won that match given her dominance in the 1st set and then poised to break in the opening game of the 2nd. She threw away her chances again and, sadly, I wasn't at all surprised!!

 

[ScottleeSV]

This.

The number of times I have seen her play and once she gets the advantage, as in the opening set of yesterday's final, she then collapses into an error machine and gives it all away!!

IMO she should have won that match given her dominance in the 1st set and then poised to break in the opening game of the 2nd. She threw away her chances again and, sadly, I wasn't at all surprised!!

She pretty much did the same thing against Muchova in the Cincy semi finals; looked in control after the first set and then played two really poor sets.

She looks like she's going to batter anyone not seeded by 6-1 6-1. Against the elite players though she's not getting things done.

People keep saying she's had an amazing year, and I guess that's true in so far as she won her first slam and got to number 1. She's won just 3 tournaments though in 2023. By this point of the year that seems... a little low? 2 of those were in Janurary. Last year she won none.

 

[40Deuce]

Sabalenka just frustrates me as she has all the weapons needed to dominate weapons tennis but she is just so mentally fragile and can implode at a moment's notice.

If she had the mental fortitude of likes of Evert, Navratilova, Graf & Williams at their peak she would be winning slam after slam.

She doesn't have all the weapons to dominate. All she has almost all the time is go for broke winners which are low percentage shots. When they go in she blows opponents off the court and when the shots are few percentage off they don't land in the margin of error zone because it's so low so they go out.