Emma Navarro’s first Grand Slam semifinal will be at the U.S. Open against Aryna Sabalenka, who is aiming to win her second major trophy of the year and her third overall.
Navarro, an American seeded 13th, made a remarkable comeback by winning the last six games of her quarterfinal match against Paula Badosa, finishing with a score of 6-2, 7-5 at Flushing Meadows on Tuesday. This followed her surprise victory over defending champion Coco Gauff.
“Sometimes you’re out on the court, and you can picture yourself playing a third set. When I was out there, I didn’t picture myself playing a third set,” despite being down 5-1 in the second set, Navarro said. “I felt like … I could come back and do it in two.”
She certainly did. There was no such drama in No. 2 Sabalenka’s 6-1, 6-2 win against No. 7 Zheng Qinwen, the gold medalist from the Paris Olympics last month. This was a rematch of Sabalenka’s win in the Australian Open final.
With Roger Federer watching from the stands, attending the U.S. Open for the first time since his retirement, Sabalenka delivered a strong performance to reach the semifinals in New York for the fourth year in a row. In 2023, she was the runner-up to Gauff.
Sabalenka noticed Federer in the crowd and guessed he was there to see Frances Tiafoe and Grigor Dimitrov, who were playing in the match after hers.
“But still, I was like, OK, I have to play my best tennis so he enjoys it. I have to show my skills, you know, slice skills, come to the net and all that stuff,” Sabalenka, a 26-year-old from Belarus known for her powerful play, said with a laugh.
She is trying to become the first woman since Angelique Kerber in 2016 to win both the Australian Open and the U.S. Open in the same year. Sabalenka won the Australian Open in January for her second consecutive title at Melbourne Park.
“I just think the next time I play against her maybe I should hold a rally better and play a little bit more relaxed,” Zheng said. “Because today obviously I entered into the match with a lot of nerves.”
The other women’s semifinalists will be decided on Wednesday, with No. 1 Iga Swiatek facing No. 6 Jessica Pegula, and No. 22 Beatriz Haddad Maia competing against unseeded Karolina Muchova.
In the men’s quarterfinals on Tuesday, No. 12 Taylor Fritz from the U.S. secured his first spot in the final four of a major by defeating 2020 U.S. Open runner-up Alexander Zverev 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (3).
Fritz had previously lost all four of his Grand Slam quarterfinal matches but finally won against Zverev, the No. 4 seed he also beat in the fourth round at Wimbledon.
“I’ve had a lot of looks at quarterfinals over the last couple of years and today just felt different,” Fritz said. “I really felt like it was my time to take it a step further.”
Tiafoe became the third American semifinalist when Grigor Dimitrov stopped playing due to an injury in the fourth set. Tiafoe was ahead 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-3, 4-1 and will face the 12th-seeded Fritz in Friday’s semifinals, ensuring the U.S. will have a men’s finalist in its Grand Slam tournament for the first time since 2006.
Navarro was close to going to a third set against Badosa but won the next four points to stay in the match, starting a run where she won 24 of the last 28 points.
“Things weren’t looking great there in the second set, but I just tried to be tough, stick in there, and make her hit one more ball,” Navarro said.
“I felt like if I could scrap out a few longer points, maybe put some pressure on her, I felt like I could come back and maybe close it out in two sets. Happy with how I was able to do that.”
Navarro had never won a match in the main draw of her home major before this year.
Badosa described herself as a “disaster” while handling the stress of trying to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal.
“I never had the momentum in this match. I played four or five games OK. It was 5-1, but I never felt myself on the court,” Badosa said. “I lost, I don’t know, 20 points almost in a row. It’s very weird for me because I’m quite a consistent player, so I wasn’t expecting that either.”
Navarro had also defeated Gauff in the fourth round at Wimbledon before losing to eventual runner-up Jasmine Paolini in the next round, with a score of 6-2, 6-1 in less than an hour.
But the 2021 NCAA singles champion from Virginia was prepared for this match against Badosa, taking the first three games and then capitalizing on Badosa’s mistakes later in the match.
Navarro became the sixth player in the last 40 years to reach the U.S. Open semifinals without a previous main-draw win at the tournament, joining recent champions Bianca Andreescu in 2019 and Emma Raducanu in 2021.
