Key events
Preamble
Yo dudes, and welcome to the US Open 2024 – day nine!
For the last eight days, we were just chatting; today, we’re talking, and we begin with an absolute jazzer of a debate.
Paula Badosa has had so much aggro with her back and mental health that she thought seriously about giving up the game. Which sounds unfortunate when you type it, but when you really think about it – a potentially brilliant athlete, in her prime, having sacrificed her youth for her art, feeling unable to go on – you feel a small piece of the anguish that must’ve enveloped her. But she found a way and, over the course of 2024, the former world no 2 has gradually rediscovered the joyous power and aggression that makes her special. She’s earned this, and she’s a danger.
But so has and is Emma Navarro. At 23, she’s worked out her game and what it takes to be a top pro, a far fitter and tougher proposition than before. To get to this point, she’s beaten both Marta Kostyuk and Coco Gauff in three tough sets, and though she got tight the first time she looked set to eliminate the champ, she learnt from it and when the chance presented itself again, she devoured it with extreme prejudice. After beating Gauff to make the Wimbledon quarters, she was subsequently battered by Jasmine Paolini; she’ll be desperate to show her home crowd she’s learnt from that too.
Following them on Ashe is a weapons-grade battle of the highest degree. No one without a grand slam title has come closer to winning won than Alexander Zverev, taking Carlos Alcaraz the distance in the French Open final, having lost a two-set lead to Dominic Thiem in this competition’s 2020 final. Now, with Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic gone, he’ll once again be feeling this is his time – more acutely than ever – and given a serve and backhand that are two of the finest shots in the game, that’s with good reason.
However there’s always a however – in this case, Taylor Fritz, on the surge and conqueror of the German at Wimbledon. His serve and forehand have always been nasty and still are, but what’s changed in recent times is the belief that he can beat the best on the biggest occasions. He’s got the game to give Zverev plenty.
If that was all, it’d be enough, but there’s also a history of needle. Though the two players get on well, at Wimbledon, Zverev took issue with some of the support Fritz was getting from his box, while Instagram posts made by Fritz’s girlfriend, Morgan Riddle – later deleted – seemed to reference allegations of domestic abuse made against Zverev by two former partners – which Riddle later said was not the case.
We’ll see if any animus surfaces but either way, we’re set for what should be a brilliant day of (US Open) tennis. Awesome! Let’s go!
Play: 12pm local, 5pm BST
