D6 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2019 S LATIMES.COM/SPORTS
TENNIS: U.S. OPEN
NEW YORK — The old
lion is still roaring. Rafael
Nadal, 33, is back in his ele-
ment, in the final of a Grand
Slam event for the 27th time,
seeking his 19th champi-
onship.
He is playing for himself,
not for numbers or records,
an approach that has been
liberating and energizing —
and successful.
Nadal had a fortunate
path to the U.S. Open final
as the No. 2 seed, placed in
the opposite half of the draw
from No. 1 Novak Djokovic
and No. 3 Roger Federer. He
also benefited from a sec-
ond-round walkover. But
while Djokovic retired in the
fourth round and Federer
lost in the quarterfinals,
Nadal has endured. He
earned his place in Sunday’s
final against 23-year-old
Daniil Medvedev of Russia
by fending off kids who were
happy to be on the same
court with him as he
schooled them in playing
clutch points and crafting
victories when circum-
stances demand it.
A victory Sunday at
Arthur Ashe Stadium would
leave Nadal one short of Fed-
erer’s no-longer-remote
record of 20 Grand Slam ti-
tles. Nadal wants the record,
but he doesn’t need it to be
satisfied with who he is.“Of course, I would love to
be the one who achieve more
Grand Slams, but I still sleep
very well without being the
one who have more Grand
Slams,” he said. “I am very
happy about what I’m doing.
I’m going to keep working
hard to produce chances.
Sunday is one. It’s just one
more chance, that’s all.“As I always say to you,
and is true, I would love to be
the one to have more, yes,
but you cannot be all day
frustrated or all day think-
ing about what’s your neigh-
bor have better than you.
You have to be happy with
yourself. You have to do your
way. If you are the one to
achieve more, fantastic. Ifnot, at least I give my best
during all my career. That’s
all.”
Nadal has lost one set
here, to Marin Cilic in the
round of 16, and he has
played only one tiebreaker,
against Matteo Berrettini in
their semifinal Friday. He
has won 67 of his 73 service
games, a 92% success rate.
Medvedev is having a
dream summer, winning 20
of 22 hardcourt matches and
rising to No. 5 in the rank-
ings. He has had to work
harder here than Nadal: He
played four matches that
went four sets, though he
polished off his opening
match and his semifinal
against Grigor Dimitrov in
straight sets. He has fired
the second-most aces in the
tournament, 88, but is sec-
ond in double faults with 46.
He has broken serve 33
times and has been broken
18 times.
His previous best GrandSlam showing was reaching
the fourth round at the Aus-
tralian Open this year.
“It’s just so tough to win a
five-set match,” he said. “I
knew I was going the right
way, I just had to fight for ev-
ery set, for every point. [It]
didn’t work out before. But
here, this week, everything
has worked out.”
Medvedev lost his only
previous match against
Nadal, a 6-3, 6-0 punishment
last month in the final at
Montreal. “It was a tough
one,” Medvedev said. “His
energy was much higher
than mine.”
As the tournament has
progressed Medvedev has
curbed the bad-boy behav-
ior that inspired fans to treat
him like a WWE villain. After
being fined for showing fans
his middle finger and
snatching a towel from a ball
boy, he has redirected his
emotions into his tennis —
and has won fans’ affection.
“I want to be a better per-
son than I was a few days
here,” he said.
He’s good enough to chal-
lenge Nadal, who has been
impressed with Medvedev’s
progress.
“I think he’s making the
steps forward every single
day,” Nadal said. “Is a super
tough final.”Little is grumpy about old man Nadal
Win over Medvedev
would leave Spaniard
one Grand Slam title
shy of Federer.
By Helene Elliott
Watching
Serena
Williams get
pushed
around. Be
outmaneu-
vered. Fight
back tears as
her serve — the most reli-
able and dangerous of all of
her weapons — abandons
her in a major final again.
When Williams lost to
Angelique Kerber in the 2018
Wimbledon final she was
broken four times. Later
Naomi Osaka broke her four
times in the U.S. Open final.
Simona Halep also broke
Williams’ serve four times in
this year’s Wimbledon final.
Bianca Andreescu did it six
times Saturday. For con-
text, Williams was broken a
total of 10 times — not losing
a single set — en route to
winning the 2017 Australian
Open.
She has yet to win a set in
a major final since.
The fact one of the great-
est athletes of all time has
made it to the finals in four
of the last seven majors is an
indicator that she’s far from
done. The fight is clearly
still there, but the eyeball
test does not offer much
solace, does it?
At the peak of her powers
Williams was a goddess.
Today, as was the case in
the previous finals, she
appeared to be mortal. She
was always the hunted, but
now she looks more capable
of being wounded. Perhaps
we’re at the phase of her
career in which she might
need things to go her way.
Perhaps a top player in her
side of the draw gets upset
or simply has a bad day.
Andreescu came into
New York red hot and
scorched whatever rem-
nants of intimidation factor
Williams may have had left.
For the better part of 20
years, it felt as if opponents
needed luck to beat her.
Now there is a clear game
plan.
Gone are the days
Williams, now 37, could
enter a major not at her
fittest, play her way into
shape, and two weeks later
walk away victorious. Now
players are absorbing the
power that used to knock
opponents off the court and
without her once-reliable
serve to get her out of trou-
ble, trophies have been hard
to come by.
It’s not easy watching
history being made forJapan and Canada on
American soil, seeing
Williams hold the smaller
plaque, enduring another
sunset with Margaret
Court’s name on top of the
all-time major wins list.
Even when Williams was
down 3-6, 1-5, I thought,
“here she comes,” for old
times sake.
And when the score was
5-5 in the second set, I won-
dered where this victory
would place on the all-time
comeback lists. Over the
course of two decades her
legend was built on flipping
a switch when things got
tense.
Now opponents are
making her hit one more
ball than we’re used to
seeing, nervousness has
acquired real estate once
owned by dominance and it
resides a lot closer to the
surface than we’re accus-
tomed.
The match opened with
a Williams ace. A few points
later she was broken and it
never really felt as if she was
able to piece herself to-
gether afterward. At least
not back to the player, the
athlete, the woman we all
once knew.
Serena Williams is differ-
ent now.And it hasn’t been easy
to accept.
That’s not to suggest she
won’t win another major or
two.
She’s not the Tiger
Woods of tennis, she’s not
Patrick Ewing in a Super-
Sonics uniform, she is not
barely holding on.
But she is reminding us
of something that is often
times overlooked when an
athlete has been dominant
as she has for as long as she
has:
It was never easy. She
just made it look as if it was.
The way Mike Tyson
made knockouts look rou-
tine, the way Clayton Ker-
shaw made strikeouts look
routine, the way every all-
time great took the most
strenuous elements of their
sport and presented them
in a way that led the naive to
believe it wasn’t that hard in
the first place. But it was
never easy for Tyson or
Woods or Kershaw.
It was never easy for
Serena Williams.
This latest defeat wasn’t
easy to watch but it is not a
sign that No. 24 is out of her
grasp. No, it was another
not-so-gentle reminder that
winning the first 23 was
hard as hell.SERENA WILLIAMS NO LONGERbrings with her an air of intimidation, at least in Grand Slam finals,
where she has lost eight sets in a row after capturing the 2017 Australian Open title.
Elsa GarrisonGetty ImagesNot the player we’re used to
LZ GRANDERSON
Saturday she double-
faulted eight times and got
only 44% of her first serves
in play. “I believe I could
have played better. I believe
I could have done more. I
believe I could have just
been more Serena today,”
Williams said. “I honestly
don’t think Serena showed
up. I have to kind of figure
out how to get her to show
up in Grand Slam finals.”
It might not have made
much difference if the Ser-
ena she still believes herself
to be had shown up Sat-
urday. Andreescu, the
daughter of Romanian
immigrants who put her in
Tennis Canada’s devel-
opment program when she
was young, was that good all
over the court. Andreescu,
who lost in the qualifying
round here last year and
didn’t make it to the main
draw, played as if she had
been here many times. In
her first Grand Slam final
she was in control most of
the way, occasionally pump-
ing herself up with shouts of,
“Come on!” to combat the
crowd’s vocal support of
Williams.
Andreescu apologized to
fans for defeating their
favorite but again, no apolo-
gy needed. “The game plan
right from the start was to
make her work for every
ball, to get as many returns
in the court as possible,”
Andreescu said. “I think she
was intimidated a little by
it.”
Andreescu, who turned
her potential into a break-
through when she won at
Indian Wells in March, gave
notice how tough she would
be Saturday when she broke
Williams’ serve in the first
game of the first set, benefit-
ing when Williams double-
faulted twice. Each held
serve easily until the sev-
enth game. Andreescu had
five break points on
Williams’ serve, each
leading the crowd to shout
encouragement to Williams.
After the game went to
deuce five times, Andreescu
hit a backhand into the net
to give Williams the advan-
tage and Williams won
the game with a forehand,
cutting Andreescu’s lead to
4-3.
Any thought that An-dreescu might have been
discouraged was dispelled
when she opened the next
game with an ace and held
for 5-3. She won the set on
her first opportunity, when
Williams double-faulted.
Andreescu held to open
the second set and broke
Williams’ serve for a 2-0
lead. Williams battled back
in the next game and gained
four break points before she
could put the game away
and cut Andreescu’s lead to
2-1. Andreescu broke back
for 3-1, held for 4-1, and broke
again for 5-1. Williams, rely-
ing on pride, saved a cham-
pionship point and clawed
back to 5-5. “I just couldn’t
go down like that, so I just
wanted to play a little bit
better,” Williams said.
Andreescu held for 6-5
and clinched the victory
with a forehand winner. “It
definitely wasn’t easy, espe-
cially when she started
coming back in the second
set. I mean, it was expected.
She’s a champion. That’s
what champions do,” An-
dreescu said. “She’s done
that many, many times
throughout her career. But I
just tried to stay as com-
posed as I could. It’s hard to
block everything out, but I
think I did a pretty good job
at that.”
Williams embraced her
at the net, and Andreescu
said Williams was kind to
her in the locker room too.
Still, it seems Williams
hasn’t accepted that her era
is ending and her chances of
tying Court are dim. “I love
Bianca. I think she’s a great
girl,” Williams said, “but I
think this was the worst
match I’ve played all tour-
nament.”
Andreescu received
congratulations from Cana-
dian Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau, Steve Nash, and
the Toronto Raptors, who
tweeted a photo of their
NBA championship trophy
alongside a jersey with her
name on it. She said she
hasn’t written herself a
check for the winner’s pay-
out at the Australian or
French Open or Wimbledon,
but she should consider
doing that soon. Anyone
who watched her Saturday
can easily visualize her
holding up those trophies
too.Andreescu is
champion now
[Elliott, from D1]BIANCA ANDREESCUis stunned after beating
Serena Williams for her first major championship.Emilee ChinnGetty ImagesToday’s match
MEN’S FINAL
No. 2 Rafael Nadal vs.
No. 5 Daniil Medvedev
TV:ESPN, 1 p.m.RAFAEL NADAL FENDED off Matteo Berrettini in the U.S. Open semifinals
and now faces Daniil Medvedev, whom he defeated in their only meeting.Johannes EiseleAFP/Getty Images