Anisimova beats Osaka to make 2nd straight Grand Slam final

NEW YORK (AP) — Amanda Anisimova eliminated four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka 6-7 (4), 7-6 (3), 6-3 in a U.S. Open semifinal that ended at nearly 1 a.m. Friday and featured two of the most powerful first-strike hitters in women’s tennis.

The No. 8-seeded Anisimova, a 24-year-old who was born in New Jersey and grew up in Florida, reached her second straight major final by coming through after 2 hours, 56 minutes.

“I wasn’t sure I would make it past the finish line and I tried to dig deep,” said Anisimova, who needed three match points to get the job done. “It was a huge fight out there today.”

When it was over, Anisimova yelled, “Let’s go!” and enjoyed the moment by kneeling on the court and leaning forward.

She will face defending champion and current No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka on Saturday for the title. Sabalenka beat Jessica Pegula in three sets on Thursday. Sabalenka owns three major trophies, all on hard courts.

At Wimbledon in July, Anisimova had a Grand Slam breakthrough, upsetting Sabalenka in the semifinals — a result that increased the American’s edge in their head-to-head series to 6-3 — and making it all the way to the title match before losing 6-0, 6-0 to Iga Swiatek. But Anisimova recovered from that quickly enough and well enough to get past Swiatek in two sets in the U.S. Open quarterfinals.

Now Anisimova is the first opponent to beat Osaka — a former No. 1 player who was seeded No. 23 in New York — this late in a Grand Slam tournament. Before this loss, Osaka had been a combined 14-0 over her career in major quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, with two trophies apiece from the U.S. Open and Australian Open.

Anisimova first got to the final four at a major tournament at the 2019 French Open at age 17. In 2023, she took a break from the tour, saying she had been “ struggling with my mental health and burnout ” for nearly a year.

At this time last season, Anisimova was ranked 50th and still working her way back. She’s most certainly back — and better than ever.

Asked what allowed her to win against Osaka, Anisimova replied: “Oh, my God. I don’t know. I mean, Naomi is playing amazing tennis. She’s back where she belongs.”

Well, Anisimova did it by forgetting about the opening set, and forgetting about a 6-5 deficit in the second.

She also did it by not holding anything back down the stretch, going for — and delivering — big groundstrokes that usually landed deep in the court and right where she wanted them. That tends to be Osaka’s style, too, but she was not quite able to keep up in the late going and took some pills a trainer gave her after examining her left foot in the third set.

Both players frequently went over to the corners of the court to look up at their coaches and trade words.

Osaka showed frustration after getting broken in the second set by smacking a ball in anger off the blue court and then tossing her racket toward the sideline.

Osaka pounded serves at up to 119 mph and produced 15 aces. Anisimova’s purest-in-the-sport backhand and almost-as-good forehand helped her compile 50 winners, 18 more than Osaka.

“Sometimes, I was like, ‘How are we making these shots?’” Anisimova said. “But we were.”

It’s true: Both were. But Anisimova made more.

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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich.

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