Aryna Sabalenka and Jessica Pegula will battle for the US Open women’s singles title on Saturday, each driven by Grand Slam ambitions but shadowed by deep personal losses.
Sabalenka, the world’s number two and reigning Australian Open champion, returns to the final at Flushing Meadows a year after finishing as runner-up to Coco Gauff.
This time, she faces Pegula, the American star who has reached her first-ever Grand Slam final at 30 years old.
For Sabalenka, the road to this final has been a journey through grief.
Earlier this year, her former boyfriend, Konstantin Koltsov, a former NHL ice hockey star, tragically passed away in March. His death, reportedly by suicide, left Sabalenka heartbroken.
“While we were no longer together, my heart is broken,” Sabalenka shared in a social media post, describing his death as an “unthinkable tragedy.”
This wasn’t Sabalenka’s first experience with personal loss. Five years ago, her father, Sergiy, passed away from meningitis at the age of 43.
He had been the one to introduce her to tennis when she was six years old, playing on empty courts in Minsk.
“I’m just trying to fight because my dad wanted me to be No. 1,” Sabalenka said at the time.
Last year, she honoured his memory by becoming the world’s top-ranked player, a season that included her maiden Grand Slam title at the Australian Open and a runner-up finish at the US Open.
Pegula, meanwhile, may come from a life of privilege as the daughter of billionaire sports moguls Terry and Kim Pegula, but her family’s wealth couldn’t shield them from tragedy.
In June 2022, her mother, Kim, suffered a cardiac arrest, resulting in brain damage and memory loss.
In a moving tribute earlier this year, Pegula revealed how her mother’s health crisis had transformed their family.
“She gave everyone so much of her time and effort. She lived it and loved it, and it was felt by everyone she met. Now we come to the realisation that all of that is most likely gone,” Pegula wrote.
Despite her family’s hardships, Pegula has enjoyed a breakout year, finally breaking her Grand Slam quarter-final curse by advancing to the US Open final after six previous quarter-final losses.
She will have the support of the 24,000-strong crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium, a factor Sabalenka is bracing for.
Reflecting on her defeat to Gauff last year, where she squandered a one-set lead, Sabalenka said she had learned valuable lessons.
“Last year it was a very tough experience, a very tough lesson,” she admitted.
“Today I was like, ‘No, Aryna, it’s not going to happen again. You have to control your emotions.’”
While Sabalenka leads their head-to-head record 5-2, including a victory over Pegula in the Cincinnati final last month, Pegula has been in scorching form, losing just one of her 16 matches in the North American hardcourt season.
“If you would have told me at the beginning of the year I’d be in the finals of the US Open, I would have laughed so hard,” Pegula said, reflecting on her improbable run, having also battled a back injury earlier in the year.
