Bearing the weight of home hopes after a coming-of-age month that has brought title wins in Washington and Cincinnati, where she claimed a milestone victory over Iga Swiatek, Gauff was handed the primetime slot in Arthur Ashe Stadium. The stage was set by a stunning rendition of the US national anthem, sung by Pranysqa Mishra, a child prodigy from Milton, Ontario. With a nine-year-old heralding the arrival of a 19-year-old – and the Obamas on hand to add to the gravitas of the occasion – it was a night for youth, patriotism and, most crucially, an American win.

The only problem was, when they said “glitz”, Siegemund thought they said “grit”. Siegemund, a gifted and combative 35-year-old from Germany, likes a challenge. She demonstrated as much earlier this summer in Warsaw, where she coped admirably when rain wreaked havoc with the schedule, battling for more than six hours to win two matches in one day as she reached her first final in two years. A former world No 27 now languishing at 121, Siegemund did not haul herself through three qualifying matches in New York merely to make up the numbers. She had come to play.

That much was immediately apparent. Siegemund set about Gauff with all the considerable tools at her disposal. Rhythm-disrupting sliced forehands flowed. Drop shots, too – a weapon rarely used against Gauff, one of the quickest athletes in the game, but deployed so effectively here that, at one stage, the ball bounced twice before the American even arrived on the scene. Above all, there was a relentless determination from Siegemund to get to the net, where she was all soft hands, lightning reflexes and incredible anticipation, delivering a volleying masterclass. 

When Pam Shriver alluded to the German’s US Open title wins in doubles and mixed doubles in a brief walk-on interview, Siegemund fixed her interrogator with an almost incredulous stare. Those successes, in 2020 and 2016, were far from her thoughts, she replied; there was a job to be done. Even so, as Siegemund repeatedly outfoxed the world’s sixth-best doubles player in rat-a-tat exchanges at the net, and pulled off one unreachable angled drop volley after another, the dexterity that carried the German to those titles was plain to see. It was show-stopping stuff. 

So this was entertainment. This was what people paid good money to see. At the time of writing, a decent seat for Gauff’s second-round meeting with Russia’s Mirra Andreeva would set you back north of $700. There are plenty of very wealthy people at Flushing Meadows, but the vast majority that shell out for a ticket do so in expectation of a contest. Siegemund gave them exactly that. She did not lie down. She refused to get steamrollered by one of the title favourites. She even dared to believe she could win. In fact, Siegemund did only one thing wrong: she took the full 25 seconds allowed between points. That tends to be par for the course when you’re giving your opponent 16 years, and Siegemund received two time violations for her troubles. Rightly so. She deserved them. 

What Siegemund did not deserve was to be heckled between her first and second serves. To hear thunderous applause when she missed her first delivery. To be jeered by a shamelessly partisan crowd for remonstrating with the umpire deep in the final set, when the match was all but lost, and after Gauff had received rapturous approval for making a similar approach to the chair three games earlier.

Gauff was unhappy that Siegemund was not ready to receive, while the German felt she was being rushed. It was playground stuff, really. But the shameless vilification of Siegemund, who left the court to a chorus of derision and later wept in her press conference, was nothing of the sort. After a superb performance, the German deserved bouquets rather than brickbats. The eloquence and emotion with which she spoke afterwards in the press room, in her second language, stood in stark contrast to the mindless disparagement she received on court.

“It was great tennis, a great show, we both fought hard,” said Siegemund. “I think an audience watching a night session match cannot ask for more.

“I’m very, very disappointed about the way people treated me today. I think I’m a fighter. I never did anything against the audience. I stayed calm. I never made even a gesture against the audience. And they had no respect for me. They had no respect for the way I played. They had no respect for the player that I am. They had no respect for good tennis. 

“And this is something, I have to say, that hurts really bad. There is no doubt that I’m slow. There is no doubt I’m getting time violations. There is no doubt I have to be quicker. 

“But at the same time, clapping when you miss the first serve, those kind of things, I have no understanding for it. 

“This kind of unfair, respectless behaviour towards the non-American player, I have only ever experienced on this court. To treat the opponent like this is just not good for tennis.

“They treated me like I was a bad person. 

“I’m 35, what do I play tennis for? I made good money, you know, I’m not going to probably reach my best ranking any more, not in singles. I play out there for the people, I play for the effort. I can still play, my body is giving me the chance to play a little bit more, and I know there are fans out there that appreciate fighting, and not giving up, and just good sport.

“This is the first time I’m crying in a press conference. I thought, you know, as a tennis player you are a performer. You owe the people. You owe the kids that watch, you owe the people that buy tickets for a lot of money.

“In the end of the day I go home, and I can look at myself and I can say I did a great job.”

That much is undeniable. Yet, from the infamous showdown between Ilie Nastase and John McEnroe in 1979, which almost sparked a full-blown riot, to Naomi Osaka’s tearful response to the boos that rained down following her maiden grand slam win over Serena Williams in 2018, spectators at the US Open have rarely been slow to insinuate themselves into a match, and this one was no exception.

The turning point came in the opening game of the second set, a war of attrition on Siegemund’s serve that ran to a dozen deuces and 26 minutes before Gauff finally got over the line on her eighth break point. But for a couple of wayward forehands, Siegemund might have held, and who knows what could have happened from there? Instead, as her inspired defiance began to exact a physical toll, she received a time violation, prompting the German to approach the chair umpire, Marijana Veljovic, and implore her to show “mercy” by not starting the time clock so quickly.

It was an understandable appeal, particularly in the context of such an unusually long game, and as the match wore on Veljovic did indeed exercise her discretion more frequently. The New York crowd saw things differently, however, applauding with gusto when Siegemund missed a first serve on the next point, and it was probably not a coincidence that the German made two successive errors to concede the game.

It was, to say the least, a pity. As Gauff began to serve with greater authority and errors crept into Siegemund’s game for the first time, the home favourite did not require the crowd’s intervention on her behalf. Several factors served to inflame the situation, however. 

Not least among them was the courtside presence of Brad Gilbert, whose influence has done so much to revitalise Gauff’s game this summer in tandem with fellow coach Pere Riba. Anyone who has read Gilbert’s account of facing Ivan Lendl in Winning Ugly, his seminal instruction book, will know that nothing infuriates the former world No 4 quite like slow play. The American supercoach complained long and loud about Siegemund running the clock down, and in truth it may have been the 62-year-old’s incessant chuntering, as much as anything Siegemund herself did, that finally tipped Gauff over the edge as she led 3-0 in the decider.

“She’s never ready when I’m serving,” Gauff complained to Veljovic. “She went over the clock like four times, and you gave her a time violation once. How is this fair?

“She’s never ready. It’s not like we’re having 30-ball rallies, it’s two balls.” 

Gauff’s forthright outburst got the crowd’s back up further, and when Siegemund later complained to Veljovic after receiving a second time violation, this time for using the towel, the clamour became deafening. Yet, three games from victory, it was probably a sideshow Gauff did not need to get involved in. 

“I was really patient the whole match,” said Gauff. “She was going over the time since the first set. I never said anything. I would look at the umpire, and she didn’t do anything.  

“Obviously the crowd started to notice that she was taking [a] long [time], so you would hear people in the crowd yelling, ‘Time,’ doing the watch motion.

“On her serve, even though you’re supposed to be on the time, I was being nice. My team told me I should have spoken up earlier. But then it got to the point where she was doing it a lot on my serve. My issue with that was, the ref was calling the score a couple of seconds after the point was finished, so it made it look like I was serving abnormally fast.

“I was finally happy when the time violation came.”

That much was evident from Gauff’s broad grin, which quickly disappeared as Siegemund, battling to the last ball, snatched the next three games. 

Gauff was asked in her post-match interview what the match had been like to play in. “Slow,” came the teenager’s succinct reply. Clearly Gauff was unaware of Siegemund’s distress at that stage, and no doubt with the benefit of hindsight she might have responded differently. Even so, it was a slightly unedifying moment. With the match won, there was little need to put the boot in. 

Should Gauff go on to win her first major in 10 days’ time, she may be thankful to have come through an early test that will only have sharpened her game and her focus. Siegemund gifted the New York crowd a terrific contest, and might just have played a small part in honing the competitive instincts of the first American champion in six years. On both counts, she deserved better than boos.

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Last summer, Swiatek returned to the city of her birth with her status as a national treasure enhanced by her ascent to the No 1 ranking four months earlier, a milestone she followed by compiling a 37-match winning streak that brought six straight titles, including a second French Open crown. It should have been a triumphant homecoming; instead, the Pole was bundled out in the quarter-finals by Caroline Garcia of France, who went on to claim the title.

Swiatek was determined things would be different this time around and, after a stop-start week in which her progress was obstructed by a combination of rainfall, a backlog of matches and some obdurate opposition, the four-time grand slam champion made good on her ambition, defeating Laura Siegemund of Germany 6-0, 6-1 to earn her fourth title of the season. 

“Despite a rough start in the first round [against Nigina Abduraimova], I showed you my tennis,” Swiatek told the crowd. “In terms of stress, this tournament is on par with Roland Garros for me. I managed to survive it, and it would not have been so without your support.”

For Swiatek, it marked a richly satisfying conclusion to a frenetic weekend that began the previous afternoon, when she cruised to a quarter-final victory over Linda Noskova, an 18-year-old Czech ranked 59 in the world, in a match held over from Friday due to rain. Hours later, the Pole returned to face Yanina Wickmayer, storming into a 6-1, 5-2 only to miss three match points and suffer two successive breaks as the Belgian, a former world No 12, levelled at 5-5 before bad light curtailed play.

It was a spirited performance from Wickmayer, who returned to the tour last summer following maternity leave, and her boldness continued to reap dividends when play resumed on Sunday lunchtime, the 33-year-old holding with aplomb and coming within two points of the second set before Swiatek edged home in a tiebreak. 

No sooner was the final point won than Swiatek, her thoughts no doubt already turning to the final, turned on her heel and made for the locker room, barely noticing the man bearing a microphone who trailed forlornly behind her. A case of exit, pursued by a would-be interviewer.

When Swiatek returned an hour or so later, however, the sense of uncertainty that dogged her in the latter stages against Wickmayer was gone, replaced by the dead-eyed certainty of a serial winner. It was Swiatek at her most ruthless: destructive, decisive, unrelenting. 

For Siegemund, a 35-year-old from Stuttgart ranked 153 in the world, the sight of Swiatek performing her signature frenetic footwork drills during the coin-toss must have seemed exhausting in itself. The German took the long road to her first singles final in six years, toiling for a combined total of more than six hours on Saturday to see off Italy’s Lucrezia Stefanini and compatriot Tatjana Maria after the previous day’s showers. Siegemund suggested afterwards she had nothing left to give. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t put up more of a battle today, but it was just a little bit too much yesterday,” said Siegemund. “I tried my best but the legs, they stayed at the hotel today. But for me it was really a great success anyway, even though I’m obviously not happy about my performance. It was almost a win for me to be in the final at all.”

In truth, though, it was as much the quality of her opponent as the quantity of her court time that did for Siegemund. The experienced German left no stone unturned in her quest for a winning strategy. Overpowered from the baseline early on, she turned to all-out attack, following up a thunderous return with an equally thunderous drive volley, only to be passed. She then changed tack, attempting to chip and charge; in response, Swiatek raced forward to pick up her opponent’s deft, angled drop volley and flick it past her. Back Siegemund came with Plan C, drawing the Pole in with a drop shot, only to be outfoxed at the net. Swiatek, as she so often does, had all the answers.

Increasingly, the pressure on Siegemund became intolerable. First she was betrayed by her judgement, mistakenly electing to leave a pass that landed just inside the line. Then, gradually, she was betrayed her game, which began to leak errors under the unforgiving scrutiny of Swiatek’s relentless baseline barrage. The sole reward for the German’s efforts came after 54 minutes, when she found an ace to win her only game of the afternoon. 

Swiatek, who thrives on rhythm and consistency, has not always been at her best over the course of a staccato week in Warsaw, partly because she is still working on the transition from grass to hard courts, but largely because she so desperately wanted to fulfil the expectations of an adoring public. 

“It’s hard for me to separate the fact that my dad is involved in organising the tournament,” said Swiatek after her last-16 win over Claire Liu of the US on Thursday. “I care a lot, maybe that’s why it affects me.”

Be that as it may, the Pole’s first steps on the road leading to next month’s US Open, where she will attempt to defend the title she won last year against Ons Jabeur, were encouraging. Her serving, in particular, was excellent, with her delivery down the centre line of the advantage court particularly effective. Most impressive, though, was the mental strength Swiatek showed to deal with the unique pressures of playing before a home crowd.

That challenge was most obviously apparent in her struggle to see out victories over Abduraimova and Wickmayer, against both of whom she held commanding second-set leads. See them out she did, though, securing the title without dropping a set and winning the 50th love set of her career along the way.

“It’s not easy to play in Warsaw,” said Swiatek, who later confirmed that she would partner Hubert Hurkacz at next summer’s Paris Olympics. “But I’m so happy that we could manage and we really did everything we could, after a pretty tiring day yesterday. I wanted to put [my] all in and just go for it, and I’m pretty happy that I did.”

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