- Game-by-game updates from the first semi-final in New York
- History awaits Djokovic – but first he must conquer nemesis Zverev
- Fernandez shows hopeful side of Canada’s tennis dream
- Email Bryan with your thoughts or tweet him @BryanAGraham
No player has won more on tour this season than Sabalenka, whose 43 victories on the year include title runs at Abu Dhabi and Madrid. Recent history suggests things could go well for her tonight: she’s won 18 of 20 career matches against players ranked outside the top 50 since the start of 2021 with the lone defeats coming against No 94 Kaia Kanepi (Gippsland Trophy) and No 75 Camila Giorgi (Eastbourne).
Hello and welcome to Arthur Ashe Stadium for tonight’s first of two US Open women’s semi-finals between Leylah Annie Fernandez and Aryna Sabalenka. We’ve got a cracker of a match in store as the second-seeded Sabalenka looks to shed her nominal title as the best active player to have never won a major title against the surprise package Fernandez, who has rode a series of upsets into the last four.
The 73th-ranked Fernandez, who toppled defending champion Naomi Osaka, 2016 winner Angelique Kerber and the No 5 seed Elina Svitolina en route to the semi-finals (while celebrating her 19th birthday on Monday), is the only fourth Canadian woman in the Open era to reach the last four at a major, following in the footsteps of Carling Bassett-Seguso (1984 US Open), Eugenie Bouchard (2014 Australian Open; 2014 Roland Garros; 2014 Wimbledon) and Bianca Andreescu (2019 US Open).