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Welcome to the U.S. Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.
On Day 12, the mens final was set after two very different matches, and Taylor Townsends U.S. Open ended in triumph.
After 126 matches, the U.S. Open mens singles will finish with the one the tournament has been waiting for.
For the third time in a row at a Grand Slam, Jannik Sinner, 24, and Carlos Alcaraz, 22, will contest the final. It is the first time in the Open Era of tennis that two players have played three consecutive major finals against each other in the same year.
Judging by their form in New York, its no surprise:
Sinner and Alcaraz have dropped two sets between them all tournament.
Sinner has been broken four times, Alcaraz twice.
They could both lose more sets against one another Sunday than they have done in their other six matches combined.
These remarkable numbers bear witness to what becomes obvious with every passing tournament: The rest of the field combined cant get close to what Sinner and Alcaraz can do to each other as individuals.
Except perhaps the version of Félix Auger-Aliassime that took to Arthur Ashe Stadium last night. Sinner beat the Canadian 6-1, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, but the victory was anything but routine. Auger-Aliassime played some of his best tennis since the early 2020s in the second and fourth sets, winning the former and pushing Sinner to the edge of going a break down for 3-1 in the latter.
The world No. 1 had left the court for a medical timeout after losing the second set, and was sweating heavily from the first set onward on a pleasant 77-degree evening.
Its nothing too serious, Sinner said.
The last time they played here in 2022, Sinner and Alcaraz produced five hours and 15 minutes of scintillating action that changed tennis forever.
It is now confirmed that they will split the four major titles for the second season in a row. Sundays winner will be world No. 1; their gap to No. 3, Alexander Zverev, is now almost 5,000 ranking points.
And every time they play each other, they sharpen their tennis and move further away from the rest of the field, as happened with the Big Three of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
This match feels like a paradox: a Grand Slam final that neither player can lose. When its over, there will be a champion and a runner-up, but in the bigger picture, this is just another piece in an overwhelming dossier of evidence that Sinner and Alcaraz take each other to heights far too high for their competitors
Charlie Eccleshare
This was the afternoon Carlos Alcaraz had been working toward for eight months.
Facing the greatest player of the modern era, and the demons that come with trying to vanquish him, Alcaraz outmuscled and out-mettled Novak Djokovic on a hard court for the first time in his career. He beat the 24-time Grand Slam champion 6-4, 7-6(4), 6-2 to make the U.S. Open final for the first time in three years, where he will face Sinner for the third major final in a row. That had never happened in the Open Era of tennis until now.
For Alcaraz, the win was both decisive and tight all at once. Every time the 38-year-old Djokovic sprinted across the court to catch up with one of Alacarazs feathered drop shots, the roars and screams and chants of NO-vak, NO-vak echoed around the hulking concrete bowl by Flushing Bay. The crowd had come to see the Djokovic show, and when he recovered from losing the first set to lead 3-0 in the second, it was on:
Even in winning the opening set, Alcarazs decision-making had been strange. He rarely hit the ball into space, instead going right at Djokovic when the Serb was out of position and inviting him back into points that looked lost.
This culminated in the point that saw him broken at the start of the second set. Alcaraz flowed forward behind a forehand, but chose to try to fool Djokovic by volleying back behind him, instead of into space. Djokovic, who had no realistic hope of covering the space, just stayed where he was and won the point to break:
But unlike at the Australian Open eight months ago, when an injured Djokovic scrambled Alcarazs brain and beat him in four sets, the 22-year-old Spaniard did not continue to get frazzled. He reset, broke back and stayed in until a tiebreak. At that point, it was Djokovics turn to lose his nerve.
Knowing his fate hung in the balance of the next dozen points, Djokovic played with a rare stress that only Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner have been able to evoke of late.
Once the king of locking down in one error-free tiebreak after another, Djokovic appeared to panic. He rushed a serve-and-volley attempt on the first point, after playing nearly a set of flawless tennis without it. He pulled the trigger too early in rallies and missed. He hit a poor drop shot to allow Alcaraz to get to a 4-1 lead.
He staged a mini-recovery, winning three of the next four points, but it was too little, too late. Alcaraz blasted a 131mph serve down the middle that landed like a roundhouse right to the jaw, then kicked in a second serve on set point. Djokovic, probably the greatest returner ever with probably the greatest backhand ever, took his backhand cut and sailed it long.
The match was over then, even with another set to play, and once it was really over, Alcaraz was into his third Grand Slam final of the year.
The larger question for Djokovic? Whether or not he is content to beat everyone in a Grand Slam, except the two best players in the world. They are 22 and 24 and seemingly arent going anywhere. They appear to be an insurmountable obstacle, unlike anything he has confronted in his career.
Matt Futterman
Taylor Townsend and Kateřina Siniaková entered the U.S. Open womens doubles final having not dropped a set. The top seed was poised to win a second Grand Slam of 2025, capping an incredible year for the partnership at Townsends home major.
Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe had other ideas, beating Townsend and Siniaková 6-4, 6-4 yesterday afternoon.
It is Dabrowski and Routliffes second major title as a team, both coming at the U.S. Open. For the duo from Canada and New Zealand, its the culmination of a journey back to the winners circle after health and injury challenges:
In December, Dabrowski revealed that she played through a breast cancer diagnosis and treatment during the 2024 season.
She underwent two surgeries and a series of recovery treatments, all while continuing to play tennis.
I think having gone through so much, the perspective that I found was that I get to play tennis, Dabrowski told reporters earlier in the tournament.
I could retire tomorrow and be very happy with my career and my friendships and all the relationships Ive built throughout the years. So Im really good inside as a person now.
Routliffe also had her share of medical challenges. After the pair won the season-ending 2024 WTA Tour Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, she suffered a fractured rib due to coughing from bronchitis. Dabrowski sustained the same injury in February of this year.
The partnership tried to play through the ailments, but the results werent materializing for most of the year. Dabrowskis rib injury meant missing the French Open. It wasnt until the pair captured the Cincinnati Masters, immediately before the U.S. Open, that things improved. Now Dabrowski and Ratcliffe are champions.
For Townsend, the result ends a challenging and memorable U.S. Open. She was at the center of a first-week altercation in which Jelena Ostapenko told Townsend, who is Black, that she had no class. Townsend later said that she let her racket do the talking. Ostapenko apologized a few days later but did not name Townsend in her statement.
It said plenty more as she beat world No. 5 Mirra Andreeva on Arthur Ashe Stadium, before falling to two-time Grand Slam singles champion Barbora Krejčíková in a gripping fourth-round match in which Townsend held eight match points.
It can be overwhelming when you want to win so badly, but ultimately, I said on the court, I feel like Ive already won no matter what the result was. So we gave it everything, and thats all that matters. Well have other shots, she said.
Lukas Weese
Jannik Sinner saves a break point with a flick of the wrists and a sharp angle.
Aryna Sabalenka (1) vs. Amanda Anisimova (8)4 p.m. ET on ESPNThe tennis balls in this match will need an ice bath when it is done. Sabalenka and Anisimova are two of the heaviest hitters on the WTA Tour, but they have both added to their games of late. Sabalenka has been incorporating more touch and feel the past two years, while Anisimova has worked on her movement after losing 6-0, 6-0 to Iga Świątek in the Wimbledon final 56 days ago. Sabalenka has played two Grand Slam finals this year, losing both to Americans. Anisimova won their last meeting at Wimbledon. The stakes are high even outside of the trophy: a barnburner should be in store
Tell us what you noticed on Day 13
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Tennis, Women’s Tennis
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