The 2025 U.S. Open begins Sunday in New York, with the Women’s Final set for Sept. 6, and Aryna Sabalenka is clearly the one to beat.
The Belarusian enters as the defending women’s singles champion and is both the No. 1-ranked player in the world and the top seed in the draw.
Sabalenka, who previously won both the 2023 and 2024 Australian Opens, finally conveyed her prowess onto another hard court at the U.S. Open last year. She had been chomping at the bit, making the final the previous year while making the semis in both 2022 and 2021. She also made the final in two of this year’s first three Grand Slams but finished as runner-up in each.
She will hope for more consistency on a hard court than what she’s displayed in 2025. Across her seven events, she has two wins and another pair of runners-up, but she’s also been bounced before the semifinals three times, including last week at the Cincinnati Open.
Consistency is something that No. 2 seed Iga Swiatek has, as she completed the Surface Slam by winning Wimbledon. She has established herself as the most accomplished women’s player in the post-Serena Williams era—her six Grand Slam wins are the most of any seeded player on the women’s side. One of those wins came at the 2022 U.S. Open, and Swiatek holds the trump card over her peers: She owns a winning head-to-head record over all other top 10-seeded players.
Coco Gauff claimed her first major title at this event in 2023 before adding a French Open win earlier this year. However, she was shockingly bounced in her opening match at Wimbledon and then, perhaps even more surprisingly, Gauff canned her coach, Matthew Daly, just days before the U.S. Open. Daly had just been hired around this time last year after Gauff was knocked out of the fourth round of the 2024 U.S. Open, so she’s on her third coach in 13 months.
Perhaps a change was needed. Outside of Roland-Garros, Gauff has no other singles titles since October 2024. She’s struggled with her serve, committing 42 double faults over three matches in a tournament earlier this month. As the No. 3 seed, Gauff is in the same half as Swiatek, which will make it a challenge for her to even reach the final. That’s because the Pole has dominated the head-to-head series, winning 11 of their 15 matches. However, Gauff has won each of their last three meetings, claiming each match in straight sets.
Jessica Pegula, the fourth seed, is one of five Americans to be ranked in the top 10. A New York native, Pegula always has the local crowd in her favor. That support helped her reach last year’s final— the first Grand Slam final of her 15-year pro career. She never even made a semifinal before. You have to wonder if that result was an outlier because she’s been unable to follow up on that showing, failing to reach a quarterfinal in any of the year’s first three majors. Pegula does have three tournament wins on three different surfaces in 2025, but they all came in lower-level tournaments.
There are some other players of note, including four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka (ranked 23rd). She has won this event in 2018 and 2020, but between pregnancy and mental health challenges, she hasn’t seen a Grand Slam quarterfinal in over four years.
There’s also 11-seed Karolina Muchova, a Czech player who reached the semis in the last two U.S. Open tournaments. If Muchova can win four matches and make the quarterfinals, then there’s a good chance she’ll win that and make the semifinals because she’s won an astounding 10 straight quarterfinals she’s played in.
No. 10 seed Emma Navarro is another New York-born competitor and is coming off her own semis at the 2024 U.S. Open. That showing may seem like a lifetime ago for the 24-year-old—she enters the 2025 U.S. Open with three straight match defeats, each coming on a hard court.
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that the winningest active women’s player is unseeded and received a wildcard entry into this event. That’s Venus Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam winner, including a pair of U.S. Opens. The 45-year-old is nearly three times older than some of the teenagers in the women’s bracket, but Williams continues competing for the love of the game rather than championship expectations.
She has just one match victory of any kind over the last two calendar years and hasn’t won a Grand Slam match since the 2021 Wimbledon. For that drought to end, she will have to upset Muchova in the first round. Muchova defeated Williams in their lone prior meeting in the first round of this very tournament in 2020.
Friends Read Free
Copy
Facebook
Tweet
