Two days after knocking out defending champion Coco Gauff, American Emma Navarro continued her winning ways and beat Paula Badosa on Tuesday to reach her first Grand Slam semi-final at the US Open.
“It’s crazy to have qualified for the semi-finals. US Open baby!” exclaimed the world number 12 after her 6-2, 7-5 victory over the Spaniard (29th).
“It’s so important to me… With my coach, we’ve been working together since I was 14 or 15, so it’s eight years. We’ve done a lot of good work together,” she said of her coach Peter Ayers.
At 23, she will face the outgoing finalist Aryna Sabalenka (2nd) or the Paris Olympic champion Qinwen Zheng (7th) on Thursday for a place in the final, who will decide at the start of the night session on Tuesday.
“I’ve played against both of them several times. They are two great players but I’ll be ready to face either one,” Navarro assured.
While she had only reached the second round once in a Major (Roland-Garros 2023), Navarro has experienced meteoric rise this year: 3rd round at the Australian Open, 8th final at Roland-Garros, quarter-final at Wimbledon and at least semi-final at Flushing Meadows, for her eighth Major.
– “Intuition”
The American won her first and only WTA title to date last January in Hobart (hard).
On Tuesday in New York, she made the best start to escape 3-0 in the first set, which she won with a second break.
But the American experienced a drop in form in the second set, which Badosa took advantage of by making the break early on.
The Spaniard then managed the double break to break away 4-1 then 5-1 by confirming her serve.
Just as the players seemed to be heading towards an inevitable deciding set, the match suddenly changed again: Badosa collapsed and left her opponent with six games in a row.
It was even on the verge of tears that she played the twelfth game of the set, the last of the match, on her serve.
“When I came back to 5-2, I had the intuition that I could finish in two sets,” Navarro said.
Suffering from chronic back pain, Badosa ended her season last year after withdrawing from Flushing Meadows and did not return to competition until June.
– “An ant” –
Just before the US Open, she won the fourth WTA title of her career in Washington, then reached the semi-finals in Cincinnati. In New York, the former world No. 2 reached the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam for the second time in her career, after Roland-Garros 2021.
On Tuesday, Badosa highlighted her state of nervousness that completely paralyzed her.
“In the second set, there was a moment where I felt a little good, but at no time were my legs fast. I was reacting slowly, and when I’m like that, I feel very small on the court,” she explained.
“After I had achieved the two breaks, I started to feel bad again, negative phrases invaded my head, and there was such a noise inside me that I only wanted to leave the court,” she added, specifying that she had felt like an “ant”.
In the men’s draw, the first quarter-final on Thursday afternoon pitted 2020 finalist Alexander Zverev (4th) against American Taylor Fritz (12th).
The 27-year-old German played in the semi-finals of the Australian Open and the final at Roland Garros this year.
For his part, the American No. 1, aged 26, has already played four quarter-finals in Majors without going any further (Wimbledon 2022, US Open 2023, Australian Open and Wimbledon 2024).
The second men’s quarter-final of the day will see the colorful American Frances Tiafoe (20th), semi-finalist in 2022, face off at the end of the night session against the Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov (9th), who at 30 years old is seeking a fourth Major semi-final, the first since the 2019 US Open.
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