A new name will go on the illustrious US Open roll of honour on Saturday evening when the home star Jessica Pegula takes on the Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka in the final inside the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York.
Sabalenka made the final here a year ago but went down to Coco Gauff while Pegula is in her first Grand Slam final and will be all out to succeed her doubles partner as the winner of her home major. Everything is teed up for a cracking evening of tennis.
Jessica Pegula
You couldn’t really say that Jessica Pegula is a surprise finalist in this tournament because she won in Canada in the lead up to this event and made the final in Cincinnati as well, however she had never been past the quarter final of a Grand Slam when she headed to New York so from that point if view it is a bit of a surprise to see the American through to this title clash. There is no disputing the fact that she deserves to be here, not least because she took care of the world number one Iga Swiatek in the quarter final. That bodes well for her in this title showdown.
Pegula will need to use the crowd here. The other thing she’ll need to do is start the match better than she did her semi-final against Karolina Muchova. To the credit of the American, she came back from adversity in that match very impressively and the longer the match went on the cleaner she was hitting the ball which bodes well. This is the most confident Pegula has been in her career so if she can avoid being overcome by nerves she will feel like she has every chance here.
Aryna Sabalenka
When the players arrived in New York ahead of this tournament there were plenty who thought Aryna Sabalenka was the favourite to win the competition. A lot of that was down to how well she won the event in Cincinnati in the lead up to the last Grand Slam of the year but also because this was never going to be a surface which Iga Swiatek got on with and also because the Belarusian won the Australian Open at the beginning of the year. The beaten finalist of a year ago hasn’t let anyone who had that thought process down so far.
Sabalenka has largely cruised through the draw. She has dropped just one set and has seen off four seeded players so unlike some who make it through to the final, she hasn’t had the easy part of the draw with wins over Qinwen Zheng and Emma Navarro in the last two rounds being particularly dominant. She knows what to expect in terms of occasion and a crowd potentially against her here having faced Gauff last year so you have to think Sabalenka is a worthy favourite in this one.
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Head-to-head
This will be the eighth time that these two big hitters have met in their career. Aryna Sabalenka leads their previous seven battles 5-2 including winning the most recent meeting which was in the final of Cincinnati last month. They are 2-2 on a hard court which might offer some encouragement to Jessica Pegula while this is their first meeting at the US Open. It is the second battle in a Grand Slam with Sabalenka having won a French Open match between the two in Covid times in 2020. This will be their second meeting in a final after they played off for the Cincinnati title three weeks ago.
Betting
It is hard to go past Aryna Sabalenka in this final but if anyone is going to take the racquet out of her hands then it is Jessica Pegula but in a first Grand Slam final and the biggest night of her life you’ve got to think there are going to be some nerves around for the American. That was the case in the semi-final on Thursday night and the intensity of this occasion is only going to be a lot stronger here. Sabalenka is a little short to me so I’m going to take another way into this final.
That comes in under 21.5 games. If you take out their first meeting, the last six occasions that these two have met each other the winner has won in straight sets so that suggests that whoever gets on top is able to maintain the form and the power that they have forces the opposition into errors under pressure which they can’t cut out. In those six straight sets matches they have all had less than 21.5 games. Five of the last seven and seven of the last 10 women’s finals in New York have been won in straight sets so under 21.5 games will do me here.
Tips
Back Under 21.5 games for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Spreadex
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