In more than 140 years of the US Open, certain finals have separated themselves from the rest — not just for the quality of tennis played, but for the drama, the historical context, the controversy, and the legacy each left behind. The greatest US Open finals have crowned new champions, ended dynasties, broken records, and produced moments of athletic excellence so distinct that they remain part of the tournament’s collective memory decades after the final ball was struck.
Here is a guide to the greatest US Open finals ever played, ranked by a combination of athletic excellence, dramatic stakes, and lasting historical significance.
1980: John McEnroe vs. Björn Borg — The Sequel That Equalled the Original
Final score: McEnroe d. Borg 7–6(4), 6–1, 6–7(5), 5–7, 6–4 Duration: Approximately 4 hours
The 1980 US Open final is widely considered the greatest in the tournament’s history — and it sits in a peculiar place in the sport’s collective memory, because it came just two months after the Borg-McEnroe Wimbledon final that is itself considered one of the greatest matches ever played.
McEnroe was the defending US Open champion. Borg, the world number one and freshly crowned Wimbledon champion for the fifth consecutive year, was pursuing a calendar-year Grand Slam — but a US Open title had been denied him in three consecutive finals already (1976, 1977, 1978). The crowd of 20,172 at Louis Armstrong Stadium openly backed the Swede.
McEnroe took the first two sets, including a 7-6 (4) tiebreak in the opener. Borg, fighting back from a two-set deficit, won the third in a tiebreak and the fourth 7-5. The match was level. In the fifth set, both players held serve through six games. With McEnroe serving at 3-3, the match seemed poised for one of the great Borg comebacks. Instead, McEnroe broke Borg’s serve at 3-3 — helped by what Washington Post columnist Tom Boswell described as a “horrendous” line call and two uncharacteristic double faults — and held his nerve to serve out the title 6-4.
The match remains the apex of the Borg-McEnroe rivalry on American hard courts. Borg, who had won 13 consecutive five-set matches before this final, lost his Open Era five-set winning streak in the same match that ended his Grand Slam hopes for 1980. He would lose the 1981 US Open final to McEnroe as well — his fourth and final defeat at Flushing Meadows — and would never win the tournament. McEnroe described 1980 as his finest tournament victory: “For that one moment in time when the match ends and you realize you’ve won the US Open, the feeling is so incredible, you really do feel like you can fly.”
2009: Juan Martín del Potro vs. Roger Federer — The Five-Set Upset
Final score: del Potro d. Federer 3–6, 7–6(5), 4–6, 7–6(4), 6–2 Duration: 4 hours, 6 minutes
The 2009 US Open men’s singles final ended one of the most dominant Grand Slam runs in tennis history. Roger Federer had won the previous five US Open titles consecutively (2004-2008) and was attempting to become the first man in the Open Era to win six in a row — and the first man at any point in history to do so since Bill Tilden in 1925.
The favourite he was — but he met a 20-year-old Juan Martín del Potro who had grown up watching Federer dominate Flushing Meadows and arrived at this final having defeated Rafael Nadal in straight sets in the semis. Federer took the first set comfortably 6-3 and was leading 5-4, 30-0 on his serve in the second when a contentious line call — overturned on Hawk-Eye challenge — derailed the Swiss. Del Potro broke back, won the tiebreak, and the entire complexion of the match changed.
Federer took the third set 6-4 to lead two sets to one. Del Potro won the fourth in another tiebreak. In the fifth set, the 6-foot-6 Argentinian’s relentless forehand became unanswerable. He broke Federer twice and closed out the match 6-2 to claim his first — and only — Grand Slam title.
It was the first US Open final to go five sets since 1999, and it remains the only US Open Federer played as a defending champion that he did not win. Del Potro joined Jimmy Connors and Lleyton Hewitt as the only Open Era men to win the US Open without first capturing a Masters 1000 title. His career would later be derailed by a series of wrist surgeries that prevented him from ever winning another major.
2018: Naomi Osaka vs. Serena Williams — The Most Controversial Final of the Modern Era
Final score: Osaka d. Williams 6–2, 6–4 Duration: 1 hour, 19 minutes
The 2018 US Open women’s singles final is one of the most-discussed Grand Slam finals in the modern era — not entirely for the tennis, but for the events that surrounded it.
The match was billed as a chance for Serena Williams, at 36, to tie Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles. Standing opposite her was 20-year-old Naomi Osaka of Japan — playing in her first Grand Slam final, against her childhood idol, in front of a Williams-backed crowd of nearly 24,000 at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Osaka was relentless. She broke twice on her way to a 6-2 first set, then led 1-0 in the second when chair umpire Carlos Ramos gave Williams a code violation for coaching — after spotting Williams’s coach Patrick Mouratoglou make a hand gesture from the stands. Williams was visibly angered.
She told Ramos she “didn’t cheat to win.” Later in the set, after smashing her racket in frustration, she was given a point penalty under the cumulative-violation rule. When she then confronted Ramos and called him a “thief,” a third violation followed — costing her an entire game.
Osaka won 6-4 to claim her first Grand Slam title, becoming the first Japanese player of either gender to win a major. The trophy presentation was conducted to sustained booing from the crowd. Osaka cried openly. Williams, in a moment that has been widely cited in the years since, urged the crowd to stop booing and to celebrate Osaka’s victory. “Let’s not boo anymore. This is her moment.”
The match generated weeks of debate over coaching rules, umpire discretion, gender bias in officiating, and the broader treatment of women athletes — debates that continue to shape professional tennis’s officiating culture. The tennis itself, often overlooked in the controversy, was excellent.
Osaka, in her first Grand Slam final, hit 16 winners to Williams’s 21 and committed only 14 unforced errors against a six-time US Open champion. It was, as Osaka herself acknowledged, a victory she had dreamed of since childhood — and one that was almost immediately overshadowed by everything else that happened.
1995: Pete Sampras vs. Andre Agassi — The Defining Rivalry
Final score: Sampras d. Agassi 6–4, 6–3, 4–6, 7–5 Duration: Approximately 3 hours
The 1995 US Open men’s singles final was the third meeting between Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi in a major final, and arguably the most consequential. Agassi was the defending champion, world number one entering the tournament, and had won the 1995 Australian Open earlier in the year. Sampras, the world number two, had lost the world ranking to Agassi just three months earlier.
The match featured one of the most replayed rallies in US Open history — a 22-shot baseline exchange in the first set with Sampras serving at 5-4. After a series of punishing exchanges, Sampras ended it with a cross-court backhand winner that drew an audible gasp from the crowd. He won the first set 6-4 and the second 6-3, demonstrating the level of tennis that had made him the most decorated grass-court player of his generation.
Agassi fought back to win the third set 6-4 and pushed the fourth to 5-5 before Sampras broke serve to take the lead, then served out the title for his third US Open and seventh Grand Slam at the time.
The match was the second of three US Open finals contested between the two rivals — Sampras winning all three (1990, 1995, 2002) — and is often cited as the technical apex of their long rivalry. Their 22-shot rally is studied in tennis academies to this day as a textbook example of high-level baseline construction.
1990: Pete Sampras vs. Andre Agassi — The Birth of an Era
Final score: Sampras d. Agassi 6–4, 6–3, 6–2 Duration: Approximately 1 hour, 42 minutes
The 1990 US Open men’s singles final introduced the tennis world to the player who would dominate the 1990s. Pete Sampras was 19 years and 28 days old — making him the youngest Open Era US Open men’s champion, a record that has stood for more than 30 years.
Sampras was ranked 12th in the world entering the tournament and was widely regarded as an unproven talent with a big serve and unfinished groundstrokes. He defeated former world number ones Thomas Muster, Ivan Lendl, and John McEnroe en route to the final against Andre Agassi — who at 20 was the favourite and the higher-ranked player.
The match was a straight-sets demolition. Sampras’s serve was unanswerable — he ended the match with 13 aces, including a fluid sequence in the third set in which Agassi could barely make contact with the ball. Agassi, then known for his colourful clothing and his denim shorts, was overpowered by a player whose serve already foreshadowed the era he would define. The match took just 1 hour 42 minutes, one of the shortest US Open finals in modern history.
Sampras would win four more US Opens before retiring after the 2002 final — also against Agassi, which he also won. The 1990 final was the first US Open final between two Americans since 1979 and remains the youngest men’s championship in the Open Era.
2001: Venus Williams vs. Serena Williams — The First Sisters’ Slam Final
Final score: V. Williams d. S. Williams 6–2, 6–4 Duration: Approximately 1 hour, 9 minutes
The 2001 US Open women’s singles final was the first Grand Slam final in the Open Era to be contested between two sisters — and the first in which an entire family’s competitive future was at stake on a single match.
Venus Williams was the defending US Open champion. Serena Williams, 19, was making her first major final appearance. The match was scheduled for a prime-time Saturday night slot — the first time a women’s Grand Slam final had been moved to prime time on Arthur Ashe Stadium, in recognition of the unprecedented cultural significance of the occasion.
The match itself was tense but uneven. Venus controlled both sets from the baseline, breaking serve at key moments in each. Serena hit hard but produced 36 unforced errors to Venus’s 18. The crowd, conscious of the family dynamic, was muted compared to typical US Open audiences — there was no clear partisan favourite, and applauding errors felt awkward in a family final.
Venus won her second consecutive US Open title in 1 hour 9 minutes. The match’s importance ran far beyond the result. It permanently changed how women’s tennis was scheduled at the US Open and at other Grand Slams. Sister matchups would become a recurring feature of major tennis for the next 15 years. And the Williams family — already among the most consequential figures in the sport — became a global cultural phenomenon overnight.
2023: Novak Djokovic vs. Daniil Medvedev — The Last Era of the Big Four
Final score: Djokovic d. Medvedev 6–3, 7–6(5), 6–3 Duration: Approximately 3 hours, 16 minutes
The 2023 US Open men’s singles final marked Novak Djokovic’s fourth US Open title and his 24th Grand Slam championship overall — tying Margaret Court’s all-time record across both men’s and women’s singles, and surpassing every record any modern tennis player had been measured against.
Djokovic had lost the 2021 US Open final to Medvedev (their first major final meeting), and the 2023 rematch carried obvious narrative weight. At 36, Djokovic was attempting to seal a year that had already included Australian Open and Roland Garros titles — meaning a US Open championship would give him three majors in a single calendar year, a feat he had achieved before but not at this age.
Medvedev, the 2021 US Open champion and 2023 finalist, was the most dangerous opponent on hard courts of the field. The match was high-quality but one-sided in key moments — Djokovic broke at the right times in the first and third sets, took the second set in a closely-contested tiebreak, and closed out the title without ever facing genuine danger.
The final was significant beyond the immediate result. It cemented Djokovic’s position at the top of the all-time Grand Slam list, surpassing Federer (20) and Nadal (22). It also marked, in retrospect, one of the last major finals of the Big Three / Big Four era — by the following year’s US Open, the men’s title had passed to Jannik Sinner, and the next generation had taken control.
Other Notable US Open Finals
A handful of other finals deserve mention for their place in the tournament’s competitive history.
1991, Stefan Edberg vs. Jim Courier: Edberg won 6-2, 6-4, 6-0 in a straight-sets clinic, demonstrating one of the great serve-and-volley performances on the new hard courts at Flushing Meadows.
1999, Serena Williams vs. Martina Hingis: Williams, 17, defeated the world number one to win her first Grand Slam title 6-3, 7-6 — the youngest US Open women’s champion in the Open Era since Tracy Austin (1979).
2003, Andy Roddick vs. Juan Carlos Ferrero: Roddick won 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 to claim what remains the most recent men’s singles title won by an American — a drought now extending more than two decades.
2017, Sloane Stephens vs. Madison Keys: Two close friends contested the US Open women’s final, with Stephens winning 6-3, 6-0 in just over an hour.
2024, Jannik Sinner vs. Taylor Fritz: Sinner defeated Fritz 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 to claim his first US Open title in straight sets — the latest in a string of generational changes at Flushing Meadows.
The Bottom Line
The greatest US Open finals are not simply the matches with the highest quality of tennis. They are the matches in which excellence, drama, and historical significance combined to produce performances that have become permanent fixtures in the sport’s collective memory. The 1980 McEnroe-Borg final is the consensus pinnacle of US Open men’s tennis. The 2009 del Potro-Federer final remains the most consequential upset in modern Grand Slam history. The 2018 Osaka-Williams final permanently changed how tennis discusses officiating, gender, and the treatment of female athletes.
Every era of the US Open has produced a final that defines it — and the finals collected here are the matches against which all future US Open Centre Court competition will continue to be measured.
