US Open 2024: Triumphs and Heartbreaks – The Emotional Journeys of Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff, and Iga Swiatek after a…

The 2024 US Open is over, and it was a very interesting two weeks of tennis, concluding with a rather expected outcome.

The 2024 US Open is over, and Aryna Sabalenka was crowned the champion. Her becoming the champion clearly means that she’s one of the winners of this event, but it’s time to see who some of the other winners are and who some of the losers are.

We have to start with the champion Aryna Sabalenka, who capped a tremendous month of tennis with a trophy at the US Open. It started in Washington, where she returned from a shoulder injury and showed a pretty promising level. She then bombed out of the Canadian Open but won the Cincinnati Open and arrived in New York full of confidence. She played that way, dropping only one set in seven matches to win the trophy and become a two-time Grand Slam champion.

It was a wonderful week for Sabalenka, who has had a pretty decent year. She didn’t have much success in the smaller events, but she won two Grand Slams, and that’s about as good as you can hope your year to be. She’s also on the verge of becoming world number one again, so all in all, life is very good for Sabalenka right now. She deserved it, as she was the best player in New York, and it wasn’t even close.

While you can make an argument that Jessica Pegula is both a winner and a loser in New York, the American is a clear winner in our mind. She had a tremendous US Open series, starting with a trophy at the Canadian Open. She then played in the Cincinnati Open final, losing to Sabalenka, and then lost to her once more in the US Open final.

If you had told her that she could sign up for this run, she would have done it without thinking too much. She even said so after the US Open final, and that’s the point. It was the best run of her career and certainly something that should give her confidence for the upcoming months. Losing in the final is problematic, but she battled fiercely in that one.

No player gave Sabalenka as many problems as Pegula did, and that’s certainly something to be proud of. She’s also stabilized her ranking and can take lots of positives from this week, which will help her achieve similar results in the future.

Another obvious winner is Karolina Muchova. The Czech player is one of the best players in the world when she’s fully healthy and able to play her best tennis. She’s proven it once more at this year’s US Open, where she made the semi-final, coming one set away from the final. In fact, she was only a handful of games away, as she had a break in hand against Pegula after winning the opening set against her.

Unfortunately, the Czech player faltered and wasn’t able to hold the necessary level, getting beaten in three sets. Still, this whole US Open experience was huge for Muchova, who once again showed she is one of the best players in the world when she’s fully healthy and able to play her best tennis.

She can build upon this result and hopefully, this time around, stay healthy enough to find herself at the WTA Finals, where she belongs. Health will always be a question mark for Muchova, but if she can keep healthy and maintain this level from New York with the confidence this run should give, she’ll be a name to watch out for in the final months of the season.

Another big winner from this event is Emma Navarro, who had a signature run for the first time in her career. It’s something we knew she was capable of after her solid run at Wimbledon, and it came in the city where she was born. It was a tremendous two weeks of tennis from Navarro, who made the semi-final and gave Sabalenka some issues in the semi-final but wasn’t able to overcome the Belarusian player.

It’s not the biggest issue because nobody else could do it either, so clearly, Sabalenka was just too good. Having this signature run is going to be a huge boost for Navarro, who is clearly showing herself to be a player who will be a Top 10 regular in no time. Soon enough, Navarro might even challenge to win majors because she has that type of talent.

Some things in her game need to improve, but she arrived in New York hoping to do some damage, and she did plenty, making defending champion Coco Gauff look pretty unremarkable. If she can keep this up, she’ll be a big name in no time, maybe even the US number one. Time will tell, but the potential is there.

Finally, we have to mention Paula Badosa, who is another winner of this event. The Spaniard arrived in New York after some a few solid weeks, where she won the Washington Open, among other things. She’s been playing super solid tennis lately and was able to back that form up by winning a couple of solid matches in New York.

For the first time in her career, Badosa found herself in a Grand Slam quarter-final, which is a huge result for her considering that only a couple of months earlier this year, Badosa thought about retiring from the sport.

Runs like this one might just prove enough to keep her motivated to endure in light of the chronic back injury which has been bothering her for over a year now. Certainly a fantastic result for the former world number two.

There are a couple of losers, and we’re going to start with the defending champion Coco Gauff, who wasn’t very good, but that’s nothing new because she hasn’t been very good for a long time.

Gauff arrived in New York in pretty poor form, having played lackluster tennis for much of the past month. She admitted ahead of the US Open that she was practicing on a supremely high level and felt very confident heading into the event, and it looked decent in the first few matches. Eventually, the American ran into better players and showed some vulnerability.

Gauff getting beaten by Emma Navarro might have been a surprise to some, but it could have been expected. She’s been playing poorly and simply ran into a better player who was playing better tennis on that day. It’s a huge letdown for Gauff, who wasn’t necessarily expected to defend her trophy, but she was expected to do much better than she actually did.

This wasn’t good, and it leaves many people wondering what we can expect from her for the rest of the year. She has some pretty big flaws in her game, such as the forehand and serve, which were both horrible in that match against Navarro, and they need to be fixed.

Another loser is Iga Swiatek, simply because the Polish player, as the reigning world number one, is expected to go deep into the event. Not many would have expected her to win the event because her form hasn’t looked that great. She did okay in Cincinnati, but overall, it wasn’t a level that made you think that she would smash everybody in New York.

She looked pretty decent to start but then ran into Jessica Pegula, and it was pretty obvious that the American was playing much better tennis. While Swiatek did try her best, it quickly became evident that she wasn’t able to win that match, and she didn’t.

That’s a huge disappointment, even when, in context, the loss doesn’t look too bad. She’s now in danger of losing her number one ranking and will face an uphill battle to keep it over the next few months.

Elena Rybakina is among the losers simply because she didn’t play more than round at the event. The Kazakh star has been amazing this year when she did play, but very often, she simply didn’t play. The US Open is another event that was derailed by a physical issue, and it’s a problem. It’s becoming a huge problem, and there doesn’t seem to be a solution on the horizon.

She can’t keep missing events like this because that’s now been a couple of big ones this year where she basically didn’t play, and that’s a loss.

Another unassuming loser is Collins, who was beaten in the first round of the US Open. Due to her retiring later this year, that’s a huge disappointment because she was expected to possibly challenge for the trophy, but losing so early will remain a painful memory for her as that was the last time we’ll see her at the US Open.