Winners and losers of the WTA US Open 2024 with Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Iga Swiatek

The 2024 US Open is over and it was a very interesting two weeks of tennis that ended with a rather expected result as Aryna Sabalenka was crowned champion. This clearly makes her one of the winners of this event, but it’s time to see who the other winners are and who the losers are. An opinion by James Lloyd (TennisUpToDate).

Winners

Aryna Sabalenka

Let’s start with the winner, Aryna Sabalenka, who crowned a great month with a victory at the US Open. It started in Washington, where she was sold after a shoulder injury and showed quite a promising level. Then she failed at the Canadian Open, but won the Cincinnati Open and came to New York full of confidence and that’s how she played: dropping just one set in seven matches, winning the trophy and becoming a two-time Grand Slam winner. It was a wonderful week for Sabalenka, who has had a pretty decent year. She didn’t have much success in the smaller tournaments, but she had won two Grand Slams, and that’s as good as you could hope for in a year. She’s also close to becoming world number one again, and all in all, things are going very well for Sabalenka at the moment. She deserves it because she was the best player in New York, and it wasn’t even close.

Jessica Pegula

While you can argue that Jessica Pegula is both a winner and a loser in New York, for me the American is a clear winner. She had a great US Open streak that started with a trophy at the Canadian Open. After that, she reached the final of the Cincinnati Open where she lost to Sabalenka, and then lost to her again in the US Open final. If she had been told she could sign up for this run, she would have done it without thinking twice. She even said so after the US Open final, and that’s exactly the point. It was the best run of her career and certainly something that should give her confidence for the next few months. Losing in the final is problematic, but she fought hard in that final.

No player has caused Sabalenka as much trouble as Pegula and that is certainly something she can be proud of. She has also stabilized her ranking and can take a lot of positives from this week that will help her achieve more results in the future.

Karolina Muchova

Another clear winner is Karolina Muchova. The Czech is one of the best players in the world when she is fully healthy and can play her best tennis. She proved that once again at this year’s US Open, where she reached the semifinals and was just one set away from the final. In fact, she was only a handful of games away from it, as she had a break in hand against Pegula after winning the first set against her. Unfortunately, the Czech was not able to maintain the required level and had to admit defeat in three sets. Nevertheless, this whole US Open experience was very important for Muchova. She showed once again that she is one of the best players in the world when she is fully healthy and can play her best tennis. She can build on that result and hopefully stay healthy enough this time to find herself at the WTA Finals where she belongs. Health will always be a question mark for Muchova, but if she can stay healthy and maintain New York’s level with the confidence this run should provide, she will be a name to keep an eye on in the final months of the season.

Emma Navarro

Another big winner of this event is Emma Navarro, who had a signature run for the first time in her career. We knew she was capable of doing this after her solid run at Wimbledon, and in the city where she was born. Navarro showed two weeks of great tennis. She reached the semifinals and caused Sabalenka some problems in the semifinals, but was unable to beat the Belarusian. This is not the biggest problem because no one else did it, Sabalenka was just too good. This success will be a huge boost for Navarro because she clearly shows that she is a player who will be in the top 10 in no time. Soon Navarro could even challenge for the Majors because she has so much talent.

Some things in her game still need to be improved, but she arrived in New York hoping to do some damage, and that’s exactly what she did, making defending champion Coco Gauff look pretty unimpressive. If she can keep this up, she’ll soon be a big name, maybe even number one in the US. Time will tell, but the potential is there.

Paula Badosa

Finally, we must mention Paula Badosa, who is another winner of this event. The Spaniard arrived after a few weeks in New York, during which she won the Washington Open, among others. She has been playing very good tennis recently and was able to back up that form with a couple of solid wins in New York. For the first time in her career, Badosa reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal. This is a great result for her considering that only a few months ago she was considering retiring from the sport. Runs like this could be enough to motivate her to keep going, given her chronic back injury that has plagued her for over a year. Certainly a fantastic result for the former world number two.

Losers

There are a few losers, and we start with the defending champion Coco Gauff, who was not very good, but that’s nothing new because she hasn’t been very good in a long time.

Coco Gauff

Gauff arrived in New York in pretty bad form after playing far too little tennis over the past month. Before the US Open, she admitted that she trained at a very high level and felt very confident before the tournament, and in the first few matches it looked that way. But then the American faced better players and showed weaknesses. Gauff’s defeat by Emma Navarro may have been a surprise to some, but it was also to be expected. She played poorly and simply came up against a better player who played better tennis that day. It’s a big disappointment for Gauff, who wasn’t necessarily expected to defend her trophy, but was expected to do much better than she actually did.

That wasn’t good and a lot of people are wondering what we can expect from her for the rest of the year. She has some pretty big weaknesses in her game, like her forehand and serve, both of which were terrible in that match against Navarro, and those need to be fixed.

Iga Swiatek

Another loser is Iga Swiatek because the Pole, as the reigning world number one, was expected to finish high. Not many would have expected her to win the tournament because her form didn’t look great. She did well in Cincinnati but overall it wasn’t a level that suggested she would blow everyone away in New York. She looked pretty good at the start but then she faced Jessica Pegula and it was pretty obvious that the American was playing much better tennis. Swiatek tried her best but it quickly became clear that she was not capable of winning this match and she didn’t. This is a big disappointment even if the loss doesn’t look too bad in context. She is now in danger of losing her number one spot and will have to fight hard to keep it over the next few months.

Elena Rybakina

Elena Rybakina is one of the losers because she only played one round at the event. The Kazakh star war this year is amazing when she has played, but very often she just hasn’t played. The US Open is another event caused by a physical problem and that is a problem. It is becoming a big problem and there doesn’t seem to be a solution in sight. You can’t keep missing events like this because she hasn’t played a couple of big events already this year and that is a loss.

Danielle Collins

Another low-profile loser is Collins, who was beaten in the first round of the US Open. This is a huge disappointment for her as she was expected to potentially challenge for the trophy. The early defeat will remain a painful memory for her as it was the last time we saw her at the US Open.