There was a changing of the guard at the U.S. Open. Carlos Alcaraz, 19, and Iga Świątek, 21, showed off tennis' bright future.
“He’s one of these few rare talents that comes up every now and then in sports,” said Ruud, who was appearing in his second Slam final after losing to Nadal at the French Open. “That’s what it seems like.”
“I think he’s on 60 percent of his game,” said Juan Carlos Ferrero, Alcaraz’s coach and the former Spanish pro. “He can improve a lot of things. He knows, and I know, that we have to keep working.” At 21, Iga Świątek was already a two-time French Open champion. Her win in New York puts her on a short list of players to win three Grand Slam events before age 22.
Świątek appeared to take that attitude into her semifinal match against Aryna Sabalenka, a match in which she dropped the first set and, for a moment, looked to be in trouble. But with her stay in New York on the brink, she showed off her preternatural ability to lock in and block out the noise — including the steady hum of passing subway cars and crowd chatter inside Ashe. She bested Sabalenka in the third set, picking her apart with a mix of speed and skillful defensive tennis.