BY: MALAYLA BATTON
The 2019 US Open started on August 26, 2019, in New York City. There were some big stars on the male side of the tournament with the top three players in the world; Novak Djokovic, Rafel Nadal, and Roger Federer. The female side also consisted of some major stars including Naomi Osaka and Asheleigh Barty who are the top two best female players in the world respectively. Some of the other stronger players of the Open consisted of Serena Williams, Karolina Pliskova, and Simona Halep.
There was also a fair share of underdogs competing with Coco Gauff, Dominic Thlem, Alexander Zverev, Daniil Medevedev, Kei Nishikori, Stefanos Tsitlpas, Karen Khanchanov, and Roberto Bautista Agut all making appearances.
On the first day of the tournament, Novak Djokovic started with a big win alongside Serena Williams who beat Maria Sharapova. There were other big wins that day as well, when Roger Federer, who struggled at first when he lost his first set, came back from an early deficit to win his first match. Day two also saw some major upsets with Stefanos Tsitlpas’ loss to Roberto Bautista Agut and both Dominic Thlem and Sloane Stephens losing their matches as well.
After the decisive first two days, one of the best matches of the tournament occurred with Naomi Osaka facing off against Coco Gauff. The match was not even close as Osaka beat Gauff 6/3 6/0 but after the match, Naomi Osaka invited Coco Gauff for an emotional on-court interview that was as unusual as it was memorable.
The next day saw the biggest loss of the tournament when the number one seed, Novak Djokovic, retired in a match against a much lower seeded player, Stan Wawrinka. While the other top seeds kept moving on, the number one female player in the world, Naomi Osaka, surprisingly lost to Belinda Bencic, the number thirteenth seed with a score of 5/7 4/6. However, other top seeds kept on winning like Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams.
Following the exciting first few rounds of the tournament, Stan Wawrinka lost to Daniil Medevedev 6/7 3/6 6/3 1/6 in the quarter-final. Roger Federer also lost his match against Grigor Dimitrov. On the women’s side of the tournament, Serena Williams beat Wang Qiang 6/1 6/0 and Elina Svitolina beat Johanna Konta 6/4 6/4. After this, Rafael Nadal, the second seed, beat Diego Schwartman, an underdog of the tournament, in a closer than expected game.
Over the next couple of days, we saw some exciting matches with wins coming from Matteo Berrettini over Gael Monfils, Bianca Andreescu over Elise Mertens, and Belinda Bencic who played Donna Vekic. We then saw Bianca Andreescu and Serena William moving on after winning their semi-finals matches while Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev, who won their matches as well, would face off in the tournament’s final round.
The women’s final placed Serena Williams against Bianca Andreescu, the definite underdog. After a great match, Andreescu beat Williams and became the youngest player to win a Grand Slam tournament. On the other side of the tournament, Rafeal Nadal played Daniil Medvedev. Being the clear favorite, Nadal beat Medvedev in a fantastic five-set match to win his 19th major title 5/7 3/6 7/5 6/4 4/6.
Editor’s Note: Featured image is used from Flikr from Trending Topics 2019. The Image is under use by license of CC BY 2.0.
