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“A dysregulated nervous system is when the athlete gets stuck in the sympathetic overdrive state and can’t properly downregulate into the parasympathetic recovery state,” says Christopherson, who has worked with professional athletes for decades. A dysregulated nervous system looks like trouble sleeping, inability to recover fully, chronic stress, and increased risk of injury from adrenaline masking pain and fatigue. It’s also the root of burnout.
While all of this technology is new, regulating the nervous system has always been a skill related to the professional athlete’s mindset. Oswald says, “These athletes are here because they’re able to manage the nerves and the nervous system. Everyone gets nervous, and they’ve found strategies.” Breathing techniques, thought processes, positive affirmation, and having rituals are how champions do it on their own. Still, Oswald says younger players are losing self-awareness.
Biometric Data
The rise of neuroscience in professional sports comes with the use of performance optimization driven by data. Top players get their metrics, like heart rate variability, cortisol, and VO2 max, checked daily (some every morning and night), and their teams use the information to optimize training and recovery protocols. Ultimately, biometrics don’t predict performance and only highlight risk of injury or fatigue. Many players avoid looking at the data.
“At this level, they are really often in the red zone, and we can’t do too much,” says Ryszczuk, who, along with every coach interviewed for this piece, says restorative sleep is better than any device. Ryszczuk notes that many younger athletes would rather use advanced recovery tools when all they need to do is get a massage for 15 to 20 minutes and go to sleep.
“Players need to connect to their bodies,” adds Stacy, who coaches athletes to find moments throughout the day to practice internal regulation. For example, focusing on your exhale to activate the parasympathetic nervous system in social settings. Then it shows up on the court.
The pros also travel across all 24 global time zones each year, and for every hour of time zone change, it takes one full day to adjust and regulate. Some arrive at tournaments a week early to acclimate, but for lower-ranked players who can’t afford extra days in a hotel, access to a decked-out recovery room may level the playing field.
The Future of Tennis
Ultimately, the neuroscience of tennis reveals that the next generation of tennis players must return to the basics before depending on a $160k recovery chamber. Like in all sports, the physical demands of tennis are increasing and requiring stronger physicality. But relying on external data and recovery tools won’t produce champions who can keep up, says Akin Akman, a pro athlete favorite for mindset coaching. When in New York, players visit Akman to get a dose of old-school champion mindset conditioning that trains the nervous system in the process.
“All athletes, and not just tennis players, limit themselves in the same ways,” Akman says, explaining that it takes learning and shifting thought patterns about the body itself. Akman was trained by the late Hall of Fame legend Nick Bollettieri. After embodying the most winning philosophy in the game, Akman became a coach on Bollettieri’s team. Now, Akman has his own facility and a method for the next generation of champions, where nervous system regulation is taught through mindset mastery.
“The real frontier is mindset,” says Akman, who cautions that relying on technology outsources awareness. “We have to believe our bodies and nervous systems are finely tuned instruments that guide us if we learn to listen. Data is great, but relying on external tools to regulate our state takes away our certainty. Excellence lies in understanding and harnessing our own physiological responses.”
Akman coaches athletes to manage their fight-or-flight reactions as they undergo physical intensity, complete with high-pressure moments designed to simulate playing in a Grand Slam. Over time, the athlete’s brain adjusts its sensitivity to repeated stimuli, building resilience and allowing the nervous system to conserve energy and adapt faster. “The real evolution,” he says, “is learning by being, by doing, by feeling.”
The Open’s pioneering efforts in recovery, coupled with the increasing focus on the nervous system by top teams, are leading a quiet revolution toward a new understanding of athlete performance and longevity. The challenge for this era of champions lies in using the benefits of advanced technology without giving up on the pursuit of inner mastery. And that should go for all of us.
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Vera Papisova
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Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson is in good form going into the World Athletics Championships
The world’s best athletes will take to the track and field this weekend when the World Athletics Championships get under way in Tokyo from September 13-21.
Many of the stars who shone at Paris 2024 will be there, including Britain’s 800m Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson and USA’s 100m Olympic champion Noah Lyles.
One of the major talking points away from the sport has been the introduction of a mandatory SRY or sex test for athletes who intend to compete in female categories.
World Athletics, led by their President Seb Coe, have taken an unambiguous stance for several years when it comes to talking about and defining new rules around the sensitive issues of the protection of female categories, transgender and DSD (Difference of Sexual Development).
They became the first global sporting federation to announce they would introduce a mandatory, once-in-a-lifetime gene test, known as an SRY Test earlier this year.
The test identifies the Y chromosome which causes male characteristics to develop. If an athlete returns a negative result, they are eligible to compete in female categories at world ranking events, including these World Championships.
World Athletics President Lord Coe says the governing body will do ‘whatever is necessary’ to protect the female category in the sport after it approved the introduction of cheek swabbing to determine if an athlete is biologically female
Coe told Sky Sports he expected every athlete required to take an SRY Test will have done so by the time track and field events get under way in Tokyo, including all French athletes.
In France, the process has been complicated by French law where the SRY gene test is illegal in France due to a 1994 law banning DNA testing for non-medical, non-judicial purposes to protect family integrity, so French athletes have had to undertake the SRY test by travelling outside of France.
Coe confirmed that while it is World Athletics’ stated aim to have all athletes tested by the start of the World Championships next month, the results do not have to be known due to the tight time frame.
For athletes whose national federation hasn’t been able to offer an SRY test yet, World Athletics will step in and offer the test at holding camps in Japan used by athletes prior to competing in Tokyo.
“By and large, the process has gone pretty smoothly, but it’s not been without its challenges,” Coe said. “The vast majority have been pretty straightforward and we’ve (World Athletics) made a contribution of about US$100 per test.”
Very.
He has transformed the athletics governing body since his election in Beijing in 2015 from the tarnished old IAAF to the new World Athletics.
He’s serving his third and final term as president and while no doubt still pondering his defeat in March’s International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidency election to Kirsty Coventry, his first love has always been track and field, and during his term as president he has tackled controversial issues like banning Russia and bringing in updated rules on gender eligibility.
Lord Coe accepts defeat to Kirsty Coventry in the IOC Presidential vote and says he welcomes the fact it’s a former Olympic athlete who will take up the role
While those issues can be divisive, the progress of time has shown that many, if not most, sporting federations have followed athletics’ lead by watching and then following.
It’s interesting to note that the new IOC President, whom he lost out to, is preparing the IOC to greater understand and perhaps even lead on gender eligibility and protections for female sports stars.
He also wants athletics firmly in the position of the world’s second most popular sport behind football by showing off packed out stadia in Tokyo.
The World Championships take place in the 70,000 capacity Olympic Stadium where during the 2020 Olympics not one fan was able to watch the sport on offer due to a strict Covid-19 lockdown in Japan.
Many of the sessions during the nine days of competition are sell-outs and, according to Coe, no session will have fewer than 50,000 people in attendance.
World Athletics deliberately scheduled the start of their marquee championships later than they would normally. Two years ago in Budapest, for example, the schedule ran during August.
High temperatures and humidity can be exceedingly high in Japan during the months of July and August, as many athletes who competed at the Tokyo Olympics four years ago will testify to.
The 2025 World Athletics Championships will be held at the National Stadium in Tokyo from September 13-21
However, heat mitigation measures will again be in place as Japan has experienced temperatures 2.36 Degrees Celsius above average between June and August, with local temperatures in Tokyo this week reaching 33 Degrees Celsius.
World Athletics president Seb Coe is of the belief that climate change is not temporary and is here to stay; at these championships, decisions on whether competition will go ahead will not be in the hands of local organisers, but World Athletics.
Information on drinks, ice baths and cooling techniques has been shared widely with athletes and their federations, while plenty of provision will be in place for spectators.
Tokyo and Japan, in general, is prone to typhoons at this time of year, indeed many British and Northern Irish athletes were confined to their hotel at their training camp for a few days due to a typhoon. If such a weather system hits Tokyo during the championships, it will again be a decision for World Athletics to make as to whether to postpone or cancel events.
Great Britain and Northern Ireland haven’t been set a medal target, but a top-eight finish in the medal table is the challenge, with an expectation of several of their world-leading track stars to medal and all relay squads to medal.
So who are the stars? The women’s 800m final has been scheduled for the last session of the last day of the championships, as it’s been viewed as being a hot ticket in town. Two Brits could well end up on the podium, both friends and training partners coached by husband and wife duo Jenny Meadows and Trevor Painter – Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson and Georgia Hunter-Bell.
Hodgkinson was one of the stars of Paris last year, streaking home to become Olympic champion and, although she has suffered hamstring injuries this year, she has come back to racing in time and is running ferociously quickly.
Keely Hodgkinson says she is in a good place after receiving her MBE and is fully focused on the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo
While perhaps not quite the right time for a tilt at the 800m world record, if Hodgkinson feels it, she’ll go for it.
Elsewhere, medals could come in men’s middle distance, with 1500m runner Josh Kerr defending his world title he won in 2023.
His battles with Norway’s Jacob Ingebrigtsen have already become legendary, with the two not the best of pals. At the Paris Olympics, one of the two should have taken the gold medal, but their attention on one another allowed the USA’s Cole Hocker to shock them both and cross the line first.
George Mills, son of Danny – the former Leeds, Manchester City and England defender – is a serious contender for medals in the men’s 5000m. This season he’s beaten Sir Mo Farah’s long-standing British 5000m record and ran the second fastest 1500m by a Brit, so the 26-year-old is well warmed up.
Katarina Johnson-Thompson is always a threat at major championships, and at Tokyo she will defend the heptathlon world title she won two years ago. She was also crowned world champion in 2019, and took Olympic silver in Paris.
Dina Asher-Smith will make her seventh appearance at a World Championship and, while the competition is fierce in both the 100m and 200m, she is running quickly this season.
“I’m just really happy,” she told Sky Sports. “I think the other week in Zurich is testament to what kind of shape I’m in because, honestly, I knew that I’ve been in good shape for a very long time and I know that I’ve been putting together some great races in the past few months, but to run a 10.90!
!I was picking it out because I know I could have had faster in me that day, but still obviously I’m very happy.”
Could Dina Asher-Smith medal at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo?
Also very quick is Daryll Neita, who finished fourth in the women’s Olympic 100m final in Paris, narrowly missing out on a medal. She did, however, take home an Olympic Silver medal from the 4x100m women’s relay and in Tokyo it is expected that Great Britain and Northern Ireland medal in all five relay disciplines.
Individually, in the men’s sprint events (100m and 200m), Zharnel Hughes should at the very least make finals, as the qualified pilot has run sub-10 seconds in the 100m and sub-20 seconds in the 200m. With age, Hughes seems to get faster, as he broke both British 100m and 200m records in 2023, the same year he took his first ever global medal, a bronze at the last World Athletics Championships.
“Obviously the experience has been taking me into finals and stuff like that,” he said. “I’ve always been one to be reckoned with when it comes to the championships. I’ve always been able to position myself into the finals at every major championship.
“Unfortunately, last year it didn’t get to happen due to injury, but I’m feeling confident and I’m looking forward to getting myself on that podium for sure. I’ll be giving it my very best, I’m filled with determination and I’m quite confident in my ability that I can always catch you at the very end.
“I’m trusting myself and trusting my speed. The work that I’ve put in leading up to this championship has been tremendous. It’s going to be great.”
While the British team is medal heavy on expectation from the track, also keep an eye on pole-vaulter Molly Caudery. She won the 2024 World Indoor title and won the Diamond League meeting in Doha in May.
The Cornishwoman is a huge talent was expected to challenge for the gold at the Olympics last year, but had a shocker and failed to even qualify for the final. The 25-year-old is determined to learn the mental lesson from a year ago.
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NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Carlos Alcaraz officially returned to No. 1 in the ATP rankings for the first time in two years on Monday, replacing Jannik Sinner there after beating him in the U.S. Open men’s final, and Amanda Anisimova jumped five spots to a career-best No. 4 in the WTA after finishing as the runner-up to Aryna Sabalenka.
“When you achieve the goals you set up (for) yourself at the beginning of the year, it feels amazing,” Alcaraz said after winning his second title at Flushing Meadows and his sixth Grand Slam trophy.
“For me,” he added, “(to) achieve that once again … is a dream.”
Alcaraz moved up from No. 2 and swapped places with Sinner by virtue of a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory over him in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday.
Sinner had held No. 1 since making his debut there in June 2024, a 65-week stay.
Alcaraz first reached that spot in September 2022 at age 19 — making him the youngest No. 1 in ATP history — by claiming his first major championship at that year’s U.S. Open. He relinquished that ranking in September 2023.
Alexander Zverev stayed at No. 3 on Monday, while Novak Djokovic, the 24-time major champion who lost to Alcaraz in Friday’s semifinals, went up three spots from No. 7 to No. 4.
Sabalenka was assured of remaining at No. 1 by getting to the quarterfinals in New York, then wound up collecting her second U.S. Open title in a row with a 6-3, 7-6 (3) win Saturday over Anisimova, a 24-year-old American.
Anisimova’s second consecutive runner-up run at a major — she lost to Iga Swiatek in the Wimbledon final in July — allowed her to climb five spots from No. 9, part of a remarkable surge from outside the top 350 when she returned last season from a mental-health break.
Swiatek, eliminated in the U.S. Open quarterfinals by Anisimova, stayed at No. 2, followed by Coco Gauff.
Jessica Pegula slid from No. 4 to No. 7. She exited against Sabalenka in the semifinals last week, a year after losing to her in the U.S. Open final.
Naomi Osaka’s first Grand Slam semifinal since the 2021 Australian Open — she lost Thursday to Anisimova in that round — carried her from No. 24 to No. 14. The four-time major champion and former No. 1 hadn’t been in the top 20 since January 2022.
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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When Carlos Alcaraz is on his game, he’s all but invincible.
That has been something like an ironclad rule of men’s tennis the last few years. It was easy to see why during Sunday’s U.S. Open final, as Alcaraz dispatched his archrival Jannik Sinner 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 in a match that wasn’t as close as the not-very-close score indicated. And while a fatigued-looking Sinner played far from his best tennis, it was difficult to imagine that even his A game could have surmounted this video-game version of Alcaraz, whose lethal mix of power and touch — a wonder to behold in person — made the No. 1 player in the world look lost. (Well, the previous world No. 1; with his second Open win, Alcaraz holds that crown now.)
The scary thing for Sinner, not to mention everyone else on tour, is that Video Game Alcaraz is now his most frequent manifestation. The sometimes-transcendent, sometimes-sloppy Alcaraz of old — he lost to Botic van de Zandschulp in the second round of this tournament last year — has increasingly given way to a more disciplined, consistent greatness. Alcaraz was in command at every juncture of every match he played, all tournament long. The one contest where he didn’t play at his highest level throughout came against Novak Djokovic in the semifinals — and he beat the 24-time major champion in straight sets anyway. “I feel like this is the best tournament so far that I have ever played,” Alcaraz said accurately, after the final. Good luck out there, everyone else!
In the monumental 2022 U.S. Open quarterfinal that cemented Sinner and Alcaraz’s rivalry, the two heavyweights both played at the zenith of their abilities simultaneously. That only happened for brief stretches on Sunday, and this wasn’t the epoch-defining men’s final that has consistently eluded the Open. (The two best finals in the last 20 years have involved Juan Martin del Potro and Daniil Medvedev, not quite household names.) Sinner looked uncomfortable from the opening game, in which he was immediately broken. His first serve deserted him for long periods, especially during a dreadful third set, and his heavy groundstrokes, which overwhelm almost every other opponent, were uncharacteristically inconsistent. Even when Sinner hit crisply, Alcaraz kept pace from the baseline, whipping his forehand and applying his unpredictable mix of brilliance — dropshots, slice forehands, sharp volleys — that kept Sinner off balance and searching for answers. Sinner did show flashes of brilliance. He managed to break Alcaraz and take the second set (the only set Alcaraz lost all tournament), and briefly looked to be turning on the jets again early in the fourth. But mostly, Sinner faced the kind of relentless pressure he usually doles out to his opponents, while Alcaraz managed to turn his serve, which has been a relative weakness, into a formidable weapon.
Maybe Sinner was rattled by the presence of President Trump, or at least the chaos surrounding it; the match began 48 minutes after its scheduled start time, with stringent security measures causing infuriatingly lengthy wait times for fans, many of whom arrived well into the first set. (As for the crowd reaction to Trump and his MAGA coterie, I can testify that he received a mix of boos and cheers when he entered Arthur Ashe Stadium, but was more roundly booed when shown on the stadium’s big screen.) Or maybe Sinner was simply beaten down from the wear and tear of a long season. Sinner, unlike Alcaraz, had not quite looked himself for stretches of this tournament, especially in a shaky third-round match against Denis Shapovalov. He took a medical timeout during a tough semifinal against Felix Auger Aliassime, and may even have been struggling with a mild injury on Sunday. Yet he likely could have overcome such an impediment against any other player.
Carlos Alcaraz is not any other player. At 22, he has already won six majors, and is pacing ahead of the Big Three at this point in their careers. Alcaraz also has a firm grip on the rivalry with Sinner, now having won seven of their last eight meetings, including two of the last three major finals. But Sinner is only 24 himself, with plenty of time to refine his otherworldly talents. In an unusually self-critical press conference after the match, he acknowledged that he must change his game to counter the one person on tour who can beat him with any kind of consistency.
Sinner’s openness to a different approach speaks well of him, and heralds a new, possibly even more entertaining chapter in the rivalry. It’s possible a third player emerges in the next year or two to intrude on this new tennis duopoly, the way Djokovic crashed the Federer/Nadal party in the late 2010s (and proceeded to become the greatest of all time). But even if it’s just Alcaraz and Sinner at the top of tennis for years, we’re in very good hands.
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Benjamin Hart
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NEW YORK — President Donald Trump was loudly booed at the men’s final of the U.S. Open on Sunday, where extra security caused by his visit led to lines long enough that many people missed the start of play, even after organizers delayed it.
Wearing a suit and long, red tie, Trump briefly emerged from his suite about 45 minutes before the match started and heard a mix of boos and cheers from an Arthur Ashe Stadium that was still mostly empty. No announcement proceeded his appearance, and it was brief enough that some in the crowd missed it.
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Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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By WILL WEISSERT – Associated Press
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NEW YORK — President Donald Trump was loudly booed at the men’s final of the U.S. Open on Sunday, where extra security caused by his visit led to lines long enough that many people missed the start of play, even after organizers delayed it.
Wearing a suit and long, red tie, Trump briefly emerged from his suite about 45 minutes before the match started and heard a mix of boos and cheers from an Arthur Ashe Stadium that was still mostly empty. No announcement proceeded his appearance, and it was brief enough that some in the crowd missed it.
Trump appeared again to more boos before the National Anthem. Standing in salute, the president was shown briefly on the arena’s big screens during the anthem, and offered a smirk that briefly made the boos louder.
When the anthem was over, the Republican pointed to a small group of supporters seated nearby, then sat on the suite’s balcony to watch the match intently. He mostly didn’t applaud, even following major points that energized the rest of the crowd as Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz bested Jannik Sinner of Italy.
Trump was shown on the big screen again after the first set ended, and elicited a roar of louder boos and some piercing whistles. He raised his left fist in salute as the noise continued in the stadium, which with a capacity of 24,000 is one of the largest in tennis.
The president later moved back inside the suite, where he was seen seated at a table with family members and appeared to be eating, but he was back in his seat shortly before match point. Cameras briefly flashed on Trump as Alcaraz celebrated, but his reaction to the conclusion was as muted as it had been throughout most of the match. This time, there was little crowd reaction, too.
Organizers pushed the start of the match back half an hour to give people more time to pass through enhanced screening checkpoints reminiscent of security at airports. Still, thousands of increasingly frustrated fans remained in line outside as the match got underway. Many seats, especially those in upper rows, stayed empty for nearly an hour.
The Secret Service issued a statement saying that protecting Trump “required a comprehensive effort” and noting that it “may have contributed to delays for attendees.”
“We sincerely thank every fan for their patience and understanding,” it said.
Trump attended the final as a guest of Rolex, despite imposing steep tariffs on the Swiss watchmaker’s home country. The U.S. Tennis Association also tried to limit negative reaction to Trump’s attendance being shown on ABC’s national telecast, saying in a statement before play began: “We regularly ask our broadcasters to refrain from showcasing off-court disruptions.”
The reactions to Trump didn’t ultimately constitute big disruptions, though.
Going to the U.S. Open was the latest example of Trump having built the bulk of his second term’s domestic travel around attending major sports events rather than hitting the road to make policy announcements or address the kind of large rallies he so relished as a candidate.
Since returning to the White House in January and prior to Sunday’s U.S Open swing, Trump has gone to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and the Daytona 500, as well as UFC fights in Miami and Newark, New Jersey, the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia and the FIFA Club World Cup final in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Some of those crowds cheered him, but people booed him at other events.
The president accepted Rolex’s invitation despite his administration imposing a whopping 39% tariff on Swiss products. That’s more than 2 1/2 times higher than levies on European Union goods exported to the U.S. and nearly four times higher than on British exports to the U.S.
The White House declined to comment on Trump accepting a corporate client’s invitation at the tournament, but the president has had few qualms about blurring lines between political and foreign policy decisions and efforts to boost the profits of his family business. He’s tirelessly promoted his cryptocurrency interests and luxury golf properties, and even announced that the U.S. will host the Group of 20 summit in December 2026 at his Doral golf resort in Florida.
No large street protests against Trump could be seen from the tournament’s main stadium on Sunday. But attendees also steered clear of wearing any of the the Republican’s signature “Make America Great Again” caps.
A 58-year-old tennis fan originally from Turin, Italy, came from her home in the Boston area to watch the final and said that when she bought a U.S. Open cap, she went with a fuchsia-hued one so it wouldn’t be mistaken for the signature darker color of MAGA hats.
“I was careful not to get the red one,” said the fan, who declined to give her name because of her employer’s rules about being publicly quoted.
Among those attending with Trump were White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff. Trump spent various portions of the match engaged in conversation with many of those around him.
Elsewhere in the crowd were a slew of celebrities — some of whom publicly backed then-Vice President Kamala Harris during last year’s election. Among them were Pink, Bruce Springsteen and Shonda Rhimes. In pre-match interviews shown on large stadium screens with the likes of Martha Stewart and Jon Hamm, the questions asked stuck to tennis and pop culture — not Trump and politics.
The president nonetheless was excited enough about his trip to tell reporters on Air Force One during the flight to New York when the plane flew over Ashe stadium — though the covered roof kept those inside from reacting.
Trump was once a U.S. Open mainstay, but hadn’t attended since he was booed at a quarterfinals match in September 2015, months after launching his first presidential campaign.
The Trump Organization once controlled its own U.S. Open suite, which was adjacent to the stadium’s television broadcasting booth, but suspended it in 2017, during the first year of Trump’s first term. The family business is now being run by Trump’s sons with their father back in the White House.
Trump was born in Queens, home of the U.S. Open, and for decades was a New York-area real estate mogul and, later, a reality TV star. Attending the tournament before he was a politician, he usually sat in his company’s suite’s balcony during night matches and was frequently shown on the arena’s video screens.
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Tennis – U.S. Open – Flushing Meadows, New York, United States – September 7, 2025 Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz celebrates with the trophy after winning the men’s singles final REUTERS/Mike Segar
Carlos Alcaraz is the US Open champion once more after producing a sensational display of tennis to defeat World No. 1 and defending champion Jannik Sinner in four sets at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Alcaraz quite literally blew Sinner off the court for the majority of the 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory to deservedly seal his sixth grand slam title – and second US Open – in two hours and 42 minutes, with Alcaraz also dethroning Sinner as World Number 1 in the wake of Sunday’s victory.
Sinner, who was bidding to become the first man to defend his US Open crown since Roger Federer in 2008, could not live with an opponent who produced a stunning array of winners in a near-perfect performance.
Sunday’s final – the third time that Alcaraz and Sinner have contested a grand slam final in 2025 – rarely saw both players reach their top level simultaneously, making for rapid and one-sided sets.
It was Alcaraz, however, who produced his highest level far more consistently – apart from a second-set lull.
The US Open final is typically a who’s who of celebrity attendees, but Sunday’s final trumped them all – literally. US President Donald Trump became the first sitting US President to attend the US Open in 25 years when he arrived at Sunday’s showpiece event and was roundly booed as he appeared on the stadium’s four jumbotrons.
Meanwhile, music legend Bruce Springsteen, who had been involved in a spat with the President several months ago, drew one of the largest cheers of the afternoon when he appeared on the big screen.
But the stars off the court did not dazzle as brightly as Alcaraz did on it, with the Spaniard avenging his Wimbledon final defeat to Sinner in some style.
Alcaraz put on a tennis masterclass in the first set, producing a catalog of scorching winners and making precious little unforced errors to take the set in just 38 minutes.
Many fans, however, missed that masterclass as hundreds of empty seats remained scattered among the upper bowls of Arthur Ashe throughout the entire set, with fans experiencing significant delays due to TSA-style security implemented for Trump’s attendance. The extra security had caused Sunday’s final to be delayed by 30 minutes.
Alcaraz broke in the very first game of the match after putting the Sinner serve under relentless pressure in a marathon game that lasted over eight minutes.
He took the break by nullifying the Sinner serve and getting almost all returns in play, while also coming out on top of some ferocious baseline rallies.
Sinner, meanwhile, produced an uncharacteristically error-strewn first set, making nine unforced errors to just six winners.
Alcaraz, on the other hand, was almost flawless, making just two unforced errors in the entire set compared to 11 winners.
He sealed a double break late in the set when Sinner sent a routine volley into the net.
Alcaraz, who had been broken just twice all tournament coming into Sunday’s final, raced through his own service games, facing almost no resistance as he produced comfortable hold after comfortable hold.
The Spaniard looked to press home the advantage and brought up a break point in the first game of the second set, which he could not convert.
That seemed to rouse Sinner, who upped the ante significantly in the second set to bring the match back on level terms.
Suddenly, it was the Italian who was producing spectacular winners and covering every inch of the Arthur Ashe surface, while Alcaraz was now producing the bulk of the unforced errors.
Sinner broke to love early in the set courtesy of a few sensational points and now looked impregnable behind his own serve, with Alcaraz producing 11 unforced errors throughout the set to allow the World Number 1 to serve out with relative comfort.
It marked the only time that Alcaraz dropped a set in the entire tournament.
But Alcaraz upped his level at the beginning of the third and cracked the Sinner serve at the first time of asking when the Italian sent a relatively straightforward shot wide from the baseline. Sinner showed his frustration by sending a second ball skyward into the Ashe crowd.
Sinner, defined by his robotic efficiency, produced three unfathomable forehand unforced errors in his very next service game to hand Alcaraz the double break.
Alcaraz, who had again produced a tennis clinic, did not offer Sinner any route back into the set and comfortably closed out for a 2-1 lead. The World Number 2 had made just two unforced errors in the entire set to blow Sinner away.
He continued the onslaught at the beginning of the fourth set and again brought up break points in the first game of the set, which Sinner saved courtesy of some big hitting.
It did not take long for Alcaraz to make the critical breakthrough, however, with Sinner handing Alcaraz the all-important break midway through the fourth set courtesy of a double-fault and a wild forehand.
Sinner did manage to save two championship points when Alcaraz was serving for the match, but the Spaniard held his nerve to convert on the third attempt, spreading his arms wide in celebration after an ace whizzed past Sinner.
For more on Carlos Alcaraz and the US Open, visit AMNY.com
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by Shane O’Brien
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The USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Sunday, September 7 is not just paying witness to the final showdown between Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz and Italian Jannik Sinner for the season, but also a bit of political history. President Donald Trump arrived at the venue shortly before the match to cheer on the two finalists for the U.S. Open’s Men’s Singles Finals, the first sitting President of the United States to do so in 25 years.
President Trump, 79, becomes the first person in office to attend the U.S. Open since Bill Clinton in 2000, although this is not his personal first. He was last present at the Open in 2015 with his wife and now first lady Melania, during a quarterfinal match between Serena and Venus Williams, where he was heavily booed when shown on the jumbotron. His last appearance preceded his eventual election as the 45th President by a year.
Trump was shown on the pre-match feeds at the stadium prior to the start of the game, receiving a mix of cheers and loud boos from the crowd, most notably loud applause from those in the luxury boxes surrounding his own. He was a guest of the Rolex corporate suite, joined by US Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
© Getty ImagesAs first reported by Bounces by Ben Rothenberg, a memo from the United States Tennis Association (USTA) advised broadcasters showing the President’s appearance at the game to essentially censor any boos or voices of dissent in their broadcasts, including “any possible protests or other reactions to President Donald Trump’s presence,” per the report.
© Getty Images“With respect to Broadcast Coverage, the President will be shown on the World Feed and the Ashe Court Feed during the opening anthem ceremony,” key lines from the memo reportedly read. “We ask all broadcasters to refrain from showcasing any disruptions or reactions in response to the President’s attendance in any capacity, including ENG [Electronic News Gathering] coverage.”
© Getty ImagesThe report also included “talking points and additional facts regarding the President’s visit,” although the “talking point” in question was apparently simply a statement that “President Trump is planning to watch the US Open Men’s Singles Final from a suite as a sponsor guest,” which was later revealed to be Rolex. “We appreciate your understanding and cooperation,” it concluded.
© Getty ImagesTrump is currently also slated to attend the New York Yankees game next week, on the 24th anniversary of 9/11. He is also mentioned as an attendee for the opening ceremony of the Ryder Cup, scheduled for September 26-28. Meanwhile, the U.S. Open will close with this final match between Carlos and Jannik, having crowned its Women’s Singles champion on Saturday, with Aryna Sabalenka defending her title.
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Ahad Sanwari
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There was reason to believe the reception would be even worse. After all, Trump was booed loudly the last time he attended the Open in 2015, when he was a still-largely dismissed candidate. Now a second-term president, Trump’s standing among Open-goers, not unlike the electorate, has improved in the intervening years.
Tennis’ final major of the year –– a magnet for New York’s power centers of business, media and entertainment –– is the type of A-list, culturally liberal gathering that Trump used to frequent. He was a regular at the Open for years, before he started wearing red baseball caps.
Now, with much of the celebrity and entertainment world still at odds with Trump, the tournament represents a bastion of Trump’s pre-MAGA era. (A Fox News headline over the weekend summed up the dynamic: “Left-leaning Hollywood elite flock to US Open with Trump set to attend men’s final.”) One recent poll found that, although sports fans generally lean right, tennis fans tilt liberal.
The scene at Arthur Ashe last Sunday suggested that Trump was entering the lion’s den. On that afternoon, fans showered the embattled late night host and Trump scourge Stephen Colbert with a rapturous ovation.
During changeovers at Ashe, luminaries seated in courtside boxes and luxury suites are shown on the video boards inside the stadium; unlike Trump, most are received warmly. Shonda Rimes, Jon Bon Jovi, Hugh Jackman and newly enshrined baseball hall of famer CC Sabathia each drew applause commensurate with their stature and public standing.
But there was something extra in the ovation for Colbert, who is in his final season as host of The Late Show after CBS announced in July that it will be canceling the program. The network insists the decision is purely a financial one, but to many –– including, presumably, fans at the US Open that day –– it seemed politically motivated, with Colbert serving as a sacrificial lamb in order to secure a merger between Skydance and Paramount, which have formed CBS’s new parent company. (The Federal Communications Commission approved the merger a week after CBS said it is pulling the plug on The Late Show.)
The acclaim for Colbert at the Open last week felt more like an expression of solidarity than simply an assertion of fandom. It was the ideological inverse to the hero’s welcome Trump received at a UFC event in New Jersey in 2024, two days after he was convicted of 34 felony counts.
UFC, of course, is a pillar of the ubermasculine culture that Trump has exploited to tremendous political effect. He has drawn from a similar well of support within the frat boy world of college football. Those sports –– favored by Trump-friendly personalities such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Dave Portnoy –– have become central components of the MAGA brand. The Open, on the other hand, represents a link to a time before Trump became the Republican standard-bearer, when he was more identified with The Apprentice than politics and still mostly embraced by the Hollywood set.
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Tom Kludt
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Carlos Alcaraz reasserted his superiority over Jannik Sinner with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 victory Sunday in the U.S. Open final — the third Grand Slam tournament in a row where these elite, young rivals met to decide the champion — for his second trophy at Flushing Meadows and sixth overall at a major.
President Donald Trump sat in a sponsor’s suite in Arthur Ashe Stadium and received a mix of cheers and boos when he offered a wave beforehand and again when he was shown on videoboards after the first set. The match’s start was delayed by about a half-hour because thousands of fans were still outside in line, trying to get through the extra security measures in place because of the presence of a sitting president at the tournament for the first time since Bill Clinton in 2000.
Perhaps the extra wait got the No. 1-seeded Sinner, who was the defending champion. Right from the beginning under a closed roof because of rain earlier in the day, No. 2 Alcaraz was better as he sought to reverse the result from when they met at the All England Club less than two months ago.
He did just that, putting his leads over Sinner at 10-5 in their head-to-head series, 6-4 in major trophies, and 2-1 in U.S. Open championships. Plus, this win allowed Alcaraz, a 22-year-old from Spain, to take away the No. 1 ranking from Sinner, a 24-year-old from Italy.
These two guys are so, so much better than the rest of men’s tennis at the moment.
They have combined to collect the past eight Slam trophies in a row, and 10 of 13. Novak Djokovic, whom Alcaraz eliminated in Friday’s semifinals, took the other three in that span.
Sunday’s showdown represented the first time in tennis history that the same two men played each other in three consecutive Slam finals within a single season.
This hard-court matchup followed Alcaraz’s victory over Sinner after erasing a trio of match points on the French Open’s red clay in June, and Sinner’s victory over Alcaraz on Wimbledon’s grass in July.
Here are five things to know about Spanish professional tennis player Carlos Alcaraz.
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Howard Fendrich | The Associated Press
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NEW YORK — There is a lot at stake when No. 1 Jannik Sinner meets No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz in the U.S. Open men’s final on Sunday — with President Donald Trump expected to be at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Sinner, a 24-year-old from Italy, is trying to become the first repeat men’s champion at Flushing Meadows since Roger Federer won five championships in a row there from 2004 through 2008.
He’s also bidding for his third Grand Slam title of the season, after the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and fifth of his career.
Alcaraz, a 22-year-old from Spain, is seeking his sixth major trophy overall and second of 2025, after the French Open. His first Slam title came in New York in 2022 as a teenager — after defeating Sinner in the quarterfinals.
Even though both are quite young, theirs is already quite a remarkable rivalry.
Sunday’s showdown represents the first time in tennis history that the same two men played each other in three consecutive Grand Slam finals within a single season.
This hard-court matchup follows Alcaraz’s victory over Sinner erasing a trio of match points on the French Open’s red clay in June, and Sinner’s victory over Alcaraz on Wimbledon’s grass in July.
So this is a tiebreaker of sorts. Plus the winner will be at No. 1 in the rankings on Monday.
No matter who comes out on top, this is the eighth consecutive major title — and 10th of the past 13 — that will end up in the hands of Sinner or Alcaraz.
Sunday’s match is Sinner’s fifth final in a row at the biggest events in tennis, a run that began with his title at the U.S. Open a year ago. Since the start of that tournament, he has won 33 of 34 matches at the majors. The loss? To Alcaraz at Roland-Garros.
Over the last two seasons, Sinner is 1-6 against Alcaraz and 109-4 against everyone else.
Alcaraz, meanwhile, has won 36 of 37 contests since May. The loss? To Sinner at the All England Club — also Alcaraz’s first defeat in a Slam final. Alcaraz leads the tour in wins (60) and titles (six) in 2025 and has reached the finals at his past eight tournaments.
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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Aryna Sabalenka has done it again. The world’s number one women’s tennis player defeated American Amanda Anisimova, 6-3, 7-6, to become the first back-to-back U.S. Open winner since Serena Williams.
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President Donald Trump will watch the U.S. Open men’s final from Rolex’s suite in Arthur Ashe Stadium, a person with knowledge of the details said Saturday.
Trump’s first appearance at the Grand Slam tournament in New York since 2015 — before his first run for the White House — will be Sunday as a guest of the Swiss watchmaker, the person told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because those plans were not publicly revealed.
Accepting use of Rolex’s suite is noteworthy because it comes weeks after the Trump administration imposed a 39% tariff on Swiss products. That’s more than 2 1/2 times higher than the one on European Union goods exported to the U.S. and nearly four times higher than on British exports to the U.S. — which has raised questions about Switzerland’s ability to compete with the 27-member bloc that it neighbors.
Sunday’s match between No. 1 Jannik Sinner and No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz is the latest high-profile sporting event for Trump after the Super Bowl in New Orleans, the Daytona 500 in Florida, as well as UFC fights in Miami and Newark, New Jersey, the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia and the FIFA Club World Cup final in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
The U.S. Tennis Association said its policy is to “regularly ask our broadcasters to refrain from showcasing off-court disruptions,” so it’s possible ABC’s telecast of the match Sunday might not include coverage of any protests that might arise.
Trump frequently attended the U.S. Open more than a decade ago, before he launched his political career, when he lived in New York. He now primarily lives at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, when he’s not in Washington.
The Trump Organization once controlled a suite at the U.S. Open, adjacent to the television broadcasting booth in Ashe, but stopped using it in 2017, the first year of Trump’s first term.
The invitation to use the Rolex suite was first reported by the website Bounces.
Having a sitting president at the U.S. Open is unusual. It hasn’t happened since Bill Clinton attended in 2000. Former President Barack Obama and wife, Michelle, attended the opening night in 2023.
Associated Press Writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.
Here are five things to know about Spanish professional tennis player Carlos Alcaraz.
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Brian Mahoney | The Associated Press
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Amanda Animisova after punching her ticket to Saturday’s final.
Photo: Robert Prange/Getty Images
Every year when the US Open rolls around in August, the discourse begins again in earnest: how long must we wait for an American man to win another Grand Slam? It’s been 22 years now, dating all the way back to Andy Roddick’s triumph at this very tournament in 2003, and still, no one looks particularly close to pulling it off. The almost-insurmountable problem is that doing so would likely require unseating Jannik Sinner and/or Carlos Alcaraz in a best-of-five encounter. And while American men’s tennis is better positioned than it has been in a while, boasting a talented crop of contenders that includes Ben Shelton and last year’s US Open finalist, Taylor Fritz, getting through the duopoly at the top of tennis is a herculean feat for anyone on tour.
The men’s title drought, and the sense of desperation it inspires in the American tennis commentariat, is all the more reason to celebrate something that can too easily be taken for granted: American women’s tennis, only a few years removed from Serena Williams’s retirement, is experiencing yet another boom period.
With her three-set, three-hour win over Naomi Osaka in the semifinals on Thursday night, New Jersey native Amanda Anisimova booked a spot in her second consecutive Major final. It was a gutsy comeback from the 6-0, 6-0 shellacking she took at the hands of Iga Swiatek at Wimbledon in July, the kind of defeat that might have kept a lesser player down for months. But the 24-year-old Anisimova, whose punishing ball-striking follows in the power tennis tradition of Lindsay Davenport and the Williams sisters before her, has proven she’s here to stay, making steady improvements to an already polished game since taking a mental health break from the tour in 2023. When she takes on world number one Aryna Sabalenka in the final on Saturday, she’ll be attempting to become the third different American woman to win a major in 2025 alone. At the French Open, world number three Coco Gauff beat Sabalenka to win her second slam; four months earlier in Melbourne, 30-year-old Madison Keys recorded storybook, back-to-back wins over Swiatek and Sabalenka to win her very first.
Joining them in the sport’s upper echelon is the late-blooming 31-year-old Jessica Pegula, an unflappable baseliner whose flat strokes and precise timing call to mind yet another giant of American women’s tennis, Jennifer Capriati. Where Gauff and Keys secured financial support and scholarships from a number of American tennis associations as young prodigies, Pegula, the daughter of oil magnate and Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula, was a less heralded junior player who didn’t break into the WTA’s top ten until she was 28. Since then, she’s been a mainstay in the sport’s upper ranks — and were it not for Sabalenka’s comeback victory against her in Thursday’s first semifinal, one of the finest matches of this year’s Open, Pegula might well be joining Anisimova in an all-American final.
And there is more depth, still, from world number 11 Emma Navarro to two-time Grand Slam doubles champion Taylor Townsend, who earned herself legions of new fans last week after gracefully enduring a heated and racially charged confrontation with her second-round opponent, Jelena Ostapenko. That many of Towsend’s countrywomen rallied behind her was a testament not only to the potent sense of solidarity among the group but to the 29-year-old’s quietly successful tenure on the women’s tour, during which she’s emerged as one of the world’s best doubles players.
But what might be more impressive than the sheer depth of American women’s tennis today is the variety of playing styles among them. If Anisimova and Keys bludgeon the ball, routinely hitting groundstrokes at speeds comparable to the best men’s players in the world, Gauff wins with unrelenting defense and mettle. Townsend, meanwhile, employs the kind of old-fashioned serve-and-volley tactics that have mostly disappeared from the modern game.
Perhaps we’ve become inured to all the winning. But the fact of the matter is that, for at least the last 50 years, no country has been better at developing women’s tennis superstars than the United States. In fact, since the last time an American man claimed a Major singles title, American women have won 25 (yes, no small chunk of those belong to Serena).
“All of us look different,” Gauff said last month at the Masters tournament in Cincinnati while reflecting on the abundance of American talent in tennis today. “We have biracial, black, white [players], all types of representation for girls and guys to look up to in the top 10.” When asked whether or not the women feel a friendly sense of rivalry with their male compatriots, she couldn’t help but get in a playful jab. “It hasn’t been much of a competition, no offense to them,” Gauff quipped. “They have to catch up.”
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Jake Nevins
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Sep 5, 2025; Flushing, NY, USA; Carlos Alcaraz of Spain celebrates his victory over Novak Djokovic of Serbia in the semifinal of the mens singles at the US Open at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
Photo: Mike Frey-Imagn Images
Carlos Alcaraz is back in the US Open final after a dominant straight-sets victory against 24-time grand slam champion Novak Djokovic at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday afternoon.
The 2022 US Open champion was full value for his 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-2 victory in two hours and 23 minutes against a 38-year-old opponent who looked every bit his age by the match’s conclusion.
Alcaraz, despite being 16 years younger than his opponent, had actually lost four of his last five meetings with Djokovic but produced a clinical performance to book his place in Sunday’s final against the winner of Friday night’s semi-final between Jannik Sinner and Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Alcaraz is yet to drop a set at this year’s tournament, becoming the first man since Roger Federer in 2015 to reach the US Open final without the loss of a set.
The Spaniard was not at his very best on Friday, producing 30 unforced errors throughout, but it was his ability to consistently hit winners from the baseline and win points behind his serve that proved the difference against an opponent who noticeably tired after losing the second set.
“It wasn’t the best level,” Alcaraz said in an on-court interview after seeing off Djokovic. “I served pretty well, which was really, really important.”
Alcaraz did produce an impressive 31 winners on Friday – more than double Djokovic’s tally – and was ruthless when it mattered most, particularly at the beginning of the first set.
Djokovic, who started sluggishly, was broken in the very first game of the set as Alcaraz put his serve under relentless pressure, obliterating the Serb’s second serve in the early stages.
Alcaraz, meanwhile, was near-flawless on his own serve and did not face a single break point in the entire set as he comfortably saw out the opening set in 47 minutes.
Djokovic, however, had shown signs of improvement toward the end of the set and started the second set on the front foot.
He pounced in Alcaraz’s firsts service game of the set when the Spaniard produced an uncharacteristically loose game to hand Djokovic a break point.
Djokovic converted his first – and only – break point of the match when he somehow produced a stunning lob with Alcaraz waiting at the net. Alcaraz reached that shot but fired a backhand long later in the rally to hand Djokovic the break. It was only the second time in the entire tournament that Alcaraz had dropped his serve.
It did not take long for the Spaniard to shake off that sluggish start, however, and the set was quickly back on serve when Alcaraz produced an outright flicked passing winner to bring up break point and draw applause from Djokovic, who sent a forehand long on the very next point to get back on track in the set.
It would be the last break point that either player enjoyed in the second set as the set hurtled toward a tiebreaker.
In an unusual tiebreaker where both players found it easier to win points on their opponent’s serve, it was Alcaraz’s ability to win back-to-back points on his own serve while leading 5-4 that proved crucial as the 2022 US Open champion moved into a two-set lead.
The Djokovic of old would have relished such circumstances, having come back from two sets down in countless matches throughout his career.
This, however, is not the Djokovic of old and the 38-year-old looked his age in the third set, handing Alcaraz an early break courtesy of a double-fault.
Speaking afterward, Djokovic said he felt like he had enough energy to “battle” with Alcaraz for two sets but felt he could not keep up with his opponent as the match moved into a third set.
He never looked close to breaking back and looked increasingly labored as the set – and match – drifted toward an inevitable conclusion, with Alcaraz breaking again in the eighth and final game of the set as Djokovic moved gingerly around the court.
A philosophical Djokovic said afterward that it is difficult to see how he can compete against Alcaraz and World Number 1 Jannik Sinner in best-of-five sets grand slam matches.
Djokovic has suffered straight-sets semi-final defeats against either Alcaraz or Sinner in each of his last three grand slam appearances and said Friday that both players are “too good.”
“Best-of-five makes it very, very difficult for me to play them, particularly at the end stages of grand slams,” Djokovic said.
Djokovic, however, said he still looks forward to participating in all four grand slams next year and hinted that he would be open to playing more best-of-three set tournaments in 2026.
“I’m happy with my level of tennis,” Djokovic said. “It’s just the physicality of it.”
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By Shane O’Brien
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NEW YORK — Amanda Anisimova eliminated four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka 6-7 (4), 7-6 (3), 6-3 in a U.S. Open semifinal that ended at nearly 1 a.m. Friday and featured two of the most powerful first-strike hitters in women’s tennis.
The No. 8-seeded Anisimova, a 24-year-old who was born in New Jersey and grew up in Florida, reached her second straight major final by coming through after 2 hours, 56 minutes.
“I wasn’t sure I would make it past the finish line and I tried to dig deep,” said Anisimova, who needed three match points to get the job done. “It was a huge fight out there today.”
When it was over, Anisimova yelled, “Let’s go!” and enjoyed the moment by kneeling on the court and leaning forward.
She will face defending champion and current No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka on Saturday for the title. Sabalenka beat Jessica Pegula in three sets on Thursday. Sabalenka owns three major trophies, all on hard courts.
This is the fifth consecutive women’s final at a Slam involving an American woman.
At Wimbledon in July, Anisimova had a Grand Slam breakthrough, upsetting Sabalenka in the semifinals — a result that increased the American’s edge in their head-to-head series to 6-3 — and making it all the way to the title match before losing 6-0, 6-0 to Iga Swiatek. But Anisimova recovered from that quickly enough and well enough to get past Swiatek in two sets in the U.S. Open quarterfinals.
Now Anisimova is the first opponent to beat Osaka — a former No. 1 player who was seeded No. 23 in New York — this late in a Grand Slam tournament. Before this loss, Osaka had been a combined 14-0 over her career in major quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, with two trophies apiece from the U.S. Open and Australian Open.
“I mean, honestly I don’t feel sad. It’s really weird. Well, it’s not weird, because I just feel like I did the best that I could,” said Osaka, who took a series of mental-health breaks starting in 2021, then was away from the tour while having a daughter. “Honestly, it’s kind of inspiring for me, because it makes me just want to train and try to get better, and hopefully, just give it my very best shot again and see what happens. But I think I can’t be mad or upset at myself.”
Anisimova first got to the final four at a major tournament at the 2019 French Open at age 17. In 2023, she took a break from the tour, saying she had been “ struggling with my mental health and burnout ” for nearly a year.
At this time last season, Anisimova was ranked 50th and still working her way back. She’s most certainly back — and better than ever.
Asked what allowed her to win against Osaka, Anisimova replied: “Oh, my God. I don’t know. I mean, Naomi is playing amazing tennis. She’s back where she belongs.”
Well, Anisimova did it by forgetting about the opening set, and forgetting about a 6-5 deficit in the second.
She also did it by not holding anything back down the stretch, going for — and delivering — big groundstrokes that usually landed deep in the court and right where she wanted them. That tends to be Osaka’s style, too, but she was not quite able to keep up in the late going and took some pills a trainer gave her after examining her left foot in the third set.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a bigger challenge than I expected, because I kind of knew that she’s that type of player. It was just kind of funny at times, because there is no pattern to what she’s doing. It’s kind of like she just hits at the empty court or whatever, and it usually goes in,” Osaka said about taking on Anisimova. “Obviously she went to the finals of Wimbledon, and now she’s in the finals here, so it just shows that she’s a really good player.”
Both players frequently went over to the corners of the court to look up at their coaches and trade words.
Osaka showed frustration after getting broken in the second set by smacking a ball in anger off the blue court and then tossing her racket toward the sideline.
Osaka pounded serves at up to 119 mph and produced 15 aces. Anisimova’s purest-in-the-sport backhand and almost-as-good forehand helped her compile 50 winners, 18 more than Osaka.
“Sometimes, I was like, ‘How are we making these shots?’” Anisimova said. “But we were.”
It’s true: Both were. But Anisimova made more.
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Coco Gauff was surprised at how much tinier the replica trophy she got to keep after winning this year’s French Open was than the trophy she posed with on court at Roland-Garros for all the world to see. She even did a TikTok about the discrepancy, drawing more than 2 million views.
Why was Gauff so taken aback by what she called the “ miniature version ”?
“I honestly did not know the size it was going to be. … I know you never really take the original, but when I won the U.S. Open, they gave me the same size (trophy), with my name engraved on it,” Gauff told The Associated Press. “So I just assumed that Roland Garros would be the same.”
Actually, it turns out Gauff’s 2023 championship at the U.S. Open marked the first time the women’s singles winner in New York was given a silver cup significantly larger than the one that is used in the postmatch ceremony. Her replica hardware is 19 1/2 inches tall, the same as both the original and keepsake men’s trophies — and 7 1/2 inches bigger than the original women’s trophy.
That one, like the original men’s, is displayed during the tournament in a locked glass box near where players enter the event’s main arena and will be briefly handed to, then taken away from, whoever wins the women’s final in Arthur Ashe Stadium this Saturday.
From 1987, when the tradition of providing keepsakes at Flushing Meadows began, until two years ago, the female champion took home a 12-inch-tall copy. But the U.S. Tennis Association asked Tiffany & Co. to create replicas for the women to match the size of what the men are allowed to keep. That change coincided with the 50th anniversary of the tournament’s 1973 move to pay equal prize money to women and men at then-player Billie Jean King’s urging.
“Equality is in our DNA here at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Everything we do, we’re very intentional about equality … and we wanted to do the same as it relates to the champion’s trophies,” U.S. Open tournament director Stacey Allaster said in an interview.
“We had a very robust conversation: Should we recreate a new women’s singles champion’s trophy? In the end, we made the decision to stay with history and to not change the trophy itself, but to ensure that the replica trophy was of the same size as the men’s,” said Allaster, who is the chief executive of professional tennis at the USTA. “Trophies are so iconic to the history of this championships, and we just didn’t feel it was the right thing to move away from that history, but … (we wanted) to be able to award the singles champions the same sizes.”
King wasn’t aware of the switch until the AP asked her about it.
“I did not know they did that. It’s fantastic. It’s equal,” King said. “It sends very positive messaging that we matter just as much. Our trophy’s just as big.”
___
Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Coco Gauff was surprised at how much tinier the replica trophy she got to keep after winning this year’s French Open was than the trophy she posed with on court at Roland-Garros for all the world to see. She even did a TikTok about the discrepancy, drawing more than 2 million views.
Why was Gauff so taken aback by what she called the “ miniature version ”?
“I honestly did not know the size it was going to be. … I know you never really take the original, but when I won the U.S. Open, they gave me the same size (trophy), with my name engraved on it,” Gauff told The Associated Press. “So I just assumed that Roland Garros would be the same.”
Actually, it turns out Gauff’s 2023 championship at the U.S. Open marked the first time the women’s singles winner in New York was given a silver cup significantly larger than the one that is used in the postmatch ceremony. Her replica hardware is 19 1/2 inches tall, the same as both the original and keepsake men’s trophies — and 7 1/2 inches bigger than the original women’s trophy.
That one, like the original men’s, is displayed during the tournament in a locked glass box near where players enter the event’s main arena and will be briefly handed to, then taken away from, whoever wins the women’s final in Arthur Ashe Stadium this Saturday.
From 1987, when the tradition of providing keepsakes at Flushing Meadows began, until two years ago, the female champion took home a 12-inch-tall copy. But the U.S. Tennis Association asked Tiffany & Co. to create replicas for the women to match the size of what the men are allowed to keep. That change coincided with the 50th anniversary of the tournament’s 1973 move to pay equal prize money to women and men at then-player Billie Jean King’s urging.
“Equality is in our DNA here at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Everything we do, we’re very intentional about equality … and we wanted to do the same as it relates to the champion’s trophies,” U.S. Open tournament director Stacey Allaster said in an interview.
“We had a very robust conversation: Should we recreate a new women’s singles champion’s trophy? In the end, we made the decision to stay with history and to not change the trophy itself, but to ensure that the replica trophy was of the same size as the men’s,” said Allaster, who is the chief executive of professional tennis at the USTA. “Trophies are so iconic to the history of this championships, and we just didn’t feel it was the right thing to move away from that history, but … (we wanted) to be able to award the singles champions the same sizes.”
King wasn’t aware of the switch until the AP asked her about it.
“I did not know they did that. It’s fantastic. It’s equal,” King said. “It sends very positive messaging that we matter just as much. Our trophy’s just as big.”
___
Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
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Amanda Anisimova, of the United States, reacts after scoring a point against Iga Swiatek, of Poland, during the quarterfinal round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
The Associated Press
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