Elena Rybakina beat Coco Gauff in the US Open semi-final on Thursday, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. One set down, two sets won, a first final in New York. She will become world number one.
In her press conference she went back over a difficult 2025, something she had talked through with her team. Then she said: “Now all my attention is on tennis”.
Jean-Pol Vandenbroeck watched the semi-final from his armchair, with a notebook he has been keeping, he says, since January.
Right, it’s very simple: this final, I said it back in January. Not by name, I’m not going to show off, but the substance was there. Go and check. Well, don’t check word for word.
Someone pointed out that in January he had in fact talked about a hard season ahead. He replied that this was exactly his point, and that the difficult year was part of the plan he had described.
Careful, I’m not saying the opposite of what I said. I’m clarifying. A player who loses the first set 3-6 and stays within two points of everything, in 80% of cases she goes through, and I’m being generous. I’ve been repeating that for years. Nobody listens to me, but I repeat it.
He also wanted it on record that at Kitzbühel, in ’92, he lost a first set himself before turning things round against a future top 10. What happened in the rest of the match was not detailed.
Cédric, our C30.4 (a club-level ranking), took something else from it: “Losing 3-6 then winning 6-4 twice, that’s about intentions, not level.”
Rybakina will play her first US Open final and will take over the world number one spot.
It’s true, we checked: L'Équipe.
