After winning the match, the two players met at the net and shared an extremely long embrace filled with words that seemed like a message from Stephens. Keys appeared to tear up as the two hugged.
“It’s really amazing. I have known Sloane for a long time and she’s a close friend of mine. To be able to play her in both of our first finals is a really special moment, especially with everything that we have gone through this year,” Keys said prior to the final.
Then in an interview on the court with ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi, Keys talked about the hug she shared with Stephens.
“Sloane is truly one of my favorite people,” Keys said. “To get to play her was really special. Obviously I didn’t play my best tennis today and was disappointed, but Sloane being the great friend that she is was very supportive.
“If there’s someone that I had to lose to today, I’m glad it was her.”
The two dealt with injuries earlier this year. Stephens was recovering from a broken foot, while Keys was recovering from wrist surgery. Making it to the US Open finals is a big deal for both of them. In fact, it was the first major final for both of them.
Stephens played like a dream, facing down all three break points she confronted while making just six unforced errors. Keys, admittedly undone by nerves, committed 30 unforced errors.
“I made six unforced errors all match?” Stephens said. “Shut the front door!”
Stephens will earn $3,700,000 for winning the US Open, nearly doubling her career prize money entering the tournament ($4,519,709). “I should just retire now,” Stephens says. “I told Maddy, I’m never going to be able to top this.”
The 24-year-old gets teary-eyed while speaking about her mother, who took her to a tennis clinic at 11 where an instructor said she’d be a Division II player at best. Is he or she still working? You’re Fired!!!
There hadn’t been an all-American women’s final at Flushing Meadows since 2002, when Serena Williams beat her older sister Venus.
What a comeback: from 957th in the world only five weeks ago to US Open champion today.
Too late. Because this represented the culmination of a fortnight of U.S. tennis revival through which a quartet of Yanks marched in stride through the front door of this tournament to create the first all-American semifinals since 1981. Venus Williams and 25-year-old CoCo Vandeweghe also figured in the tournament’s end game.
The next generation — and the enduring 37-year-old Williams — stepped into the breach created in January when Serena Williams took maternity leave before delivering birth to her first child, a daughter, Sept. 1. Ultimately, the absence of the world’s greatest player created not a void but an opportunity.
And now, even as Stephens — who broke down in tears while embracing a similarly emotional Keys at the net immediately following the match — slips on her crown, the rivalry between the first-time Grand Slam winner and the 23-time champion immediately will take center stage upon Serena Willams’ expected return for the 2018 Australian Open.
Williams’ and Stephens’ relationship in the aftermath of the upstart’s victory over Williams in the 2013 Australian Open quarterfinals is said to be frosty. Apparently, there were some hurt feelings.
There is a change at the top of U.S. tennis, even if perhaps transitory. Staying at the top is always more difficult than getting to the top. Now, for the first time in her professional life, Stephens is the hunted.
And Williams is among the hunters.
Though Stephens acknowledged “when anyone has ‘Grand Slam champion’ in front of their name, it changes things a little bit,” she said she does not believe she has ascended to a higher level or will be a target in future tournaments.
“I don’t think of it that way. If anything, I’m still working my way back,” she said. “My ranking is a little higher, but if you think about it, five weeks ago, I was like 900-and-something and wasn’t really a threat. I’m just going to keep going with that and ride that wave for as long as I can.”
Following a successful 2012 season in which she first reached the second week of a major, she rose to prominence upon reaching the semifinals of the 2013 Australian Open, notably defeating Serena Williams en route. Since then, she has reached a career-high singles ranking of 11 in the world and claimed her first WTA title at the 2015 Citi Open. She won her first major title at the 2017 US Open, ranked 83 in the world at the time with a protected ranking, and is now currently ranked NO.#17 IN THE WORLD.
