Coco Gauff has reached her first US Open final by defeating Karolina Muchova 6-4 7-5, in a match interrupted for 50 minutes by environmental activists including one who glued his bare feet to the concrete in the Arthur Ashe Stadium stands.
The toughest part for Gauff might have been closing out the victory: She needed six match points to get it done, raucously supported by a loud, partisan crowd that chair umpire Alison Hughes repeatedly implored to quieten down.
After failing to convert one match point while serving for the win at 5-3, then another four in what turned out to be the last game, Gauff got the last chance she would need when she smacked a forehand winner to cap a 40-stroke exchange that was the longest of the contest. Muchova then missed a backhand to end it.
“Some of those points, it was so loud, and I don’t know if my ears are going to be OK,” said Gauff, a 19-year-old from Florida who is the first American teenager to make it to the title match in New York since Serena Williams in 2001.
“I grew up watching this tournament so much, so it means a lot to be in the final. A lot to celebrate,” Gauff said. “But the job is not done, so hopefully you can back me on Saturday.”
With Gauff up a set and holding serve to open the second, a disturbance erupted in the upper bowl of Arthur Ashe Stadium as shouting began, disrupting play.
Photographs of the scene showed three climate activists wearing shirts with the slogan, “End Fossil Fuels”.
Two of them were escorted relatively quickly after security guards and, eventually, police officers arrived. But it took more time to remove the person glued to the ground.
Both players left the court for part of the delay.
Television coverage showed more than a dozen law enforcement officers in the section.
Just Stop Oil protesters interrupted play at Wimbledon in July, releasing orange ticker-tape mixed with jigsaw puzzle pieces during matches.
The victory was the 11th in a row for Gauff and the 17th in her past 18 matches, a run that began after a first-round exit at Wimbledon in July.
The streak includes the two biggest titles of Gauff’s career – and needs just one more win to get an even more important championship.
She was the runner-up at the 2022 French Open and now will try to claim her first grand slam title.
The No.6-seeded Gauff will face either No.2 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus or No.17 Madison Keys of the US on Saturday.
Sabalenka, who won the Australian Open in January and is guaranteed to move up to No.1 in the rankings for the first time next week, and Keys, the runner-up at the 2017 US Open, will meet in the second semi-final on Thursday.
Tournament No.6 seeds Matthew Ebden and Rohan Bopanna are through to the US Open men’s doubles final at Flushing Meadows.
The Australian tennis star and his Indian partner beat the veteran French team of Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert 7-6 (7-3) 6-2 in Thursday’s first semi-final.
Ebden and Bopanna cruised through the second set in 29 minutes after needing 65 minutes to take the first.
At 43, Bopanna became the oldest men’s doubles grand slam finalist in the Open era, dating to 1968, and can win his first major men’s doubles title having lost the 2010 US Open decider with Pakistani Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi to Mike and Bob Bryan.
Ebden is seeking his second, having joined fellow Australian Max Purcell to win Wimbledon in 2022.
But they face a monumental task ahead in Friday’s final when they take on Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury, who are vying for the first US Open men’s doubles three-peat in more than 90 years.
The No.3 seeds pulled out a 7-5 3-6 6-3 win over the No.2-seeded duo of Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek, for their 17th straight victory at Flushing Meadows.
American Ram and Britain’s Salisbury haven’t lost at the US Open since the 2020 semi-finals.
They are the first team to reach three straight finals here since the famed Australian duo of Todd Woodbridge and Mark Woodforde from 1994-96, and can become the first to win three straight times since Americans John Doeg and George Lott Jr. from 1928-30.
They surged ahead by breaking Dodig’s serve in the second game of the third set en route to a 3-0 lead, and the 39-year-old Ram eventually closed it out with a dominant service game in which Dodig and Krajicek could only get one ball back into play.
© AAP
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