US Open Women's Final Preview: Ons Jabeur and Iga Swiatek have each defeated the other twice. Who will win their biggest match yet?

The Break: Ons Jabeur meets Andy Roddick

When the women’s event at the Open began, many of us marveled that there were no favorites to win the title. None of the top-ranked players, including No. 1 Iga Swiatek and No. 5 Ons Jabeur, looked to be in Slam-winning form in the lead-up events in Toronto or Cincinnati. At the game time, the player who was on a roll, Caroline Garcia, had never been past the third round in New York. It seemed as if 25 players had a roughly equivalent chance of winning.

But what started out as a level playing field grew more hierarchical, and logical, with each round. There were upsets, of course; the Wimbledon champion, Elena Rybakina, went out in the first round on a quiet side court, and didn’t even make it to the main interview room afterward. Yet the tournament’s final four survivors made sense: Swiatek is No. 1; Jabeur was the Wimbledon runner-up; Aryna Sabalenka was playing her third Slam semifinal; and Garcia looked unbeatable. Now the final two make even more sense: Swiatek and Jabeur are No. 1 and No. 2 in the WTA’s 2022 rankings race.

Like any two players who win six straight matches, each is in top form and brimming with confidence. As much as anyone else in the sport, the Pole and the Tunisian have shown the value of working with a mental coach full time, and treating the mind as something to be conditioned and fine-tuned, just like the body. It has paid off especially well in New York, where Swiatek and Jabeur have each rebounded from a period of doubt, and a disappointing defeat at Wimbledon.

“When I talk to my coach before the matches,” Jabeur says, “I just feel like now I can do whatever I can do, and what I want to do, on the court, which is surprising for me. It’s going very well, especially this tournament.”

In her last two rounds, Jabeur has belied her image as a mercurial finesse artist and gone out and beaten her opponents to the punch instead. In those matches, she faced Ajla Tomljanovic and Garcia, players who had been dictating rallies from the ground and rushing their opponents. Instead of doing the predictable thing and trying to disrupt them with spins and drops, Jabeur out-hit them and took the initiative away. She made Garcia, in particular, look lost.

“I know she was very confident so I had to really impose my game from the beginning,” Jabeur said, “and it was working very well until the end of the match.”

As for Swiatek, even when she has been challenged, she has never lost her self-assured, I’m-going-to-win-eventually demeanor. She had it after dropping the first set to Jule Niemeier in the fourth round; when she was pushed to a tiebreaker by Jessica Pegula in the quarters; and when she trailed Sabalenka 2-4 in the third in the semis. Swiatek seemed to dare her opponents to match her mix of speed and firepower; as she suspected, none of them could pull it off for two full sets. Swiatek had a similar attitude during her win streak earlier in the year, but it was missing at Wimbledon. She credited her comeback against Niemeier with restoring her self-belief.

“It kind of gives you a little bit of that trust that you can handle any situation that’s out there,” Swiatek said. “It’s the best experience you can have for [your] next matches.”

So what will happen when No. 1 and 2 collide on Saturday? A competitive match, most likely. Swiatek and Jabeur are 2-2 against each other, with Swiatek winning their only meeting of 2022, 6-2, 6-2, on clay in Rome in May.

Swiatek is coming off a comeback semifinal win, and Jabeur is coming off a 65-minute beatdown. Maybe that means we’ll see a quick start from Jabeur in the final, and a counterattack from Swiatek. Jabeur’s power has been the surprise of the last two rounds, and it will be interesting to see if she can impose herself on the typically harder-hitting Swiatek.

Jabeur really won’t want to lose two straight major finals. Unfortunately, she may not have a choice. In 2019, Swiatek lost her first career final; since then, she’s won nine straight, and hasn’t dropped a set in any of them. Winner: Swiatek