Twice on Thursday night Coco Gauff did the hard part against Elena Rybakina. In the second set she came back from 4-1 down to 4-4. In the third she broke Rybakina as she served for the match at 5-3, and let out a scream that a sold-out Arthur Ashe Stadium answered. Both times the next game was Gauff’s serve at 4-5, and both times she lost it.
The second one ended the match. A Rybakina volley took the game to 15-40, and on the first match point Gauff had the court open for an overhead and hit it long. Rybakina won 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in just over two hours to reach her first US Open final, a day after clinching the world No. 1 ranking, and plays Aryna Sabalenka for the title on Saturday.
“It honestly came down to a couple of service games of mine in both sets and I didn’t quite hold,” Gauff said. “She does a great job of just being there every point and putting a lot of pressure on you on service game and return game.”
For a set it was Gauff’s match. She broke for 4-2, held to love for 5-2 and served it out 6-3 in 38 minutes, out-acing Rybakina, the tour’s leader in aces, 4-1 along the way. Rybakina made 18 unforced errors in the set by the WTA’s count, and said afterwards that she had taken a deep breath and told herself she had to fight.
She cut the errors down at once. Rybakina held to open the second set, broke in the fourth game for 3-1 and held again for 4-1. Gauff broke back for 4-3 and held for 4-4, but at 4-5 she double-faulted to go down 15-40, and a forehand into the net gave Rybakina the set. By CBS Sports’ count Gauff put 48 percent of her first serves in during that set, with three double faults, and made 25 unforced errors across the last two sets as the forehand broke down.
The third went with serve to 3-3. Rybakina broke in the eighth game for 5-3, Gauff broke straight back when Rybakina served for it, and then lost her own serve for the second game running. Rybakina, according to AFP, said she had been “a little bit lucky on her serve” at the end. “A couple of deep returns, one mistake from her, it went quickly my way.”
Where it went. Rybakina broke Gauff four times, all of them in the last two sets and two of them in games where Gauff was serving to stay in a set. Gauff broke three times. It is the second major in a row that Gauff has lost in the semifinals, after Wimbledon in July, and it ends a summer in which she won Cincinnati and reached the Toronto semifinals. She did not take much from that. “My dad came up to me and was like, you accomplished so many great things this summer, and I’m like, I don’t care about the summer,” she said. “But, I mean, it’s the goal. I want to be a consistent player.” She also said she had played almost every match here on her own terms.
Rybakina now leads Gauff 2-1, after beating her 5-7, 6-2, 6-2 in the Toronto semifinals last month. She had never been past the fourth round in New York before this year, and this was her second win from a set down in two days, after Zheng Qinwen on Wednesday. On Saturday she plays the woman she replaces at No. 1, in a rematch of the Australian Open final she won in January. The final’s time, TV and head-to-head are here.
Related: Coco Gauff profile | Elena Rybakina profile | Andreeva Held Two Match Points, and Gauff Is Still Unbeaten Against Her
