US Open Day 14 - Rybakina shows why she is No.1

Catherine Whitaker (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to The Tennis Podcast, coming to you from Flushing Meadows, New York, on the night of the US. Open Women's Singles Final, a final which saw Elena Rybakina confirm herself as the best player in the world. Thursday, she confirmed herself as the new world number one, and just an hour or so ago, here on the Arthur Ashe Stadium, she became a US. Open champion for the first time, adding to her total of now three major titles. If you don't already know, I'm Catherine Whitaker, and alongside me tonight, and every night of this US. Open, are my co-hosts, David Law and Matt Roberts. All of us were lucky enough to watch that final tonight, a pretty engrossing tennis match, in my opinion, with moments of great jeopardy, even great attention, and I think all of us came away, David, feeling like we have watched the best player in the world win that trophy tonight.

David Law (1:11)

Yeah, she really underlined it tonight. You know, it was one of those strange ranking situations whereby she'd already earned the world number one ranking on Monday, and yet she might lose to the place, player that she's about to displace, which would have been a kind of a bit unsatisfactory in a sort of narrative sense, even though she absolutely deserved it. But to see her underline it like this leaves you in no doubt. And to have done it, having come into the tournament with question marks over her ankle, her achilles, if you think it was only a couple of weeks ago, she could barely walk, and she's just gradually built herself into this tournament, didn't even know if she'd get to the start line. And then tonight, she just showed you what makes her so special in a number of ways, you know, from the peerless serve. And it wasn't peerless all the way through, because she had a really tough start with it. But once it got cranking, I mean, there's just not another weapon out there in the women's game like that Elena Rybakina serve, to the piercing ground strokes, which just put Sabalenka on the back foot in a way that nobody else can. And also the nerve, the nerve at the end. She did wobble at times because she's human. Anybody wobbles and it's just fine. But she found a way to still win.

And having never gone beyond the fourth round of the tournament before, that she's now won.

It's massively impressive.

Matt Roberts (2:43)

You are welcome, Elena. I feel like we sealed this for her yesterday when we all won after another, predicted Aryna Sabalenka to win, as we had one after another done for the semi-finals as well, getting them wrong and lots of people on the bar which being like, yeah, that was the moment I knew Rybakina was going to win. And we definitely have to hold our hands up there. But she was fantastic, really. The whole match, I was blown away by how well Rybakina was playing.

It was six and a half games until she made an unforced error. She was hitting the ball so sweetly. And the commentators on Sky were saying that was a very harsh unforced error that they thought was given to her there. It was a pretty flawless opening set from the ground. And as David said, for her to then lose that second set and be totally unaffected by that momentum change, heading into a deciding set of a Grand Slam final and to just play that one with such authority as well was so impressive. And yeah, I really enjoyed the match and have really enjoyed this trilogy of Sabalenka, Rybakina, Grand Slam finals that they've now played against each other, two in Australia and one here.

They've all gone to deciding sets.

They're all really compelling to me. And yeah, Rybakina, a deserving winner today. She was definitely the better player on the court.

Catherine Whitaker (4:17)

And do you remember how worried we were ahead of the first Grand Slam final? They played against one another in Australia three years ago.

David Law (4:24)

Yeah.

Catherine Whitaker (4:25)

I remember doing preview for that final on that pod and being really worried that there'd be no rallies.

It would be this style matchup. They'd be too similar in styles and it would be bitty and difficult to get your teeth into. And we've got quite a lot of evidence now that this matchup delivers even when the tension is highest.

David Law (4:51)

Yeah. I think it's a testament to their hand-eye coordination as much as anything else. Their athleticism as well.

The shots that would normally just go past an opponent or be shanked by an opponent because of the sheer velocity of them. These two players are able to middle back time after time. You know, they may have the odd bad patch within these contests, but you do feel like you get a fair bit of them playing well at the same time, which is the ultimate, isn't it?