Serena Williams will have to wait yet again to tie for the all-time lead in Grand Slam singles titles. Meanwhile, Bianca Andreescu might just be starting her own run.
Williams fell 6-3, 7-5 to Andreescu in the US Open final on Sunday. The win is the 19-year-old Andreescu’s first career Grand Slam, and the fourth straight loss in a Grand Slam final for Williams.
Williams, owner of 23 Grand Slam singles titles, is one short of Margaret Court’s 24 for a share of the all-time lead. Williams’ last Grand Slam title came at the 2017 Australian Open.
Star-making performance from Bianca Andreescu
Andreescu set the tone early by breaking Williams in the first game of the match, and never relinquished the lead in breaks during the first set.
The second set looked like it would a runaway win for Andreescu after she broke Williams twice in a row to take a commanding 5-1 game lead. Williams responded with the fire that has brought her to the brink of history and fought back to tie the set at 5-5.
And yet, it was Andreescu’s moment. The Canadian pulled it back together and won the match, completing a meteoric rise in the world of tennis this year.
Andreescu is now 8-0 against Top-10 players.
— David Waldstein (@DavidWaldstein) September 7, 2019
Andreescu began the year ranked outside of the top 100, but put the tennis world on notice with a win at Indian Wells in the BNP Paribas Open. She eventually rose to No. 15 in the world entering the US Open, and will rise even more once the rankings are updated.
Andreescu is both the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam and the first player born in the 2000s to capture the honor. Between Andreescu, last year’s champion Naomi Osaka and plenty of other young challengers like Coco Gauff, the future of women’s tennis could be forming before our eyes.
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