The Latest: Raducanu wins first set of US Open women’s final
Sep 10, 2021, 9:39 PM | Updated: Sep 11, 2021, 3:12 pm
NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on the U.S. Open tennis tournament (all times local):
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5:20 p.m.
Emma Raducanu has the lead in the race to be the youngest Grand Slam champion in 17 years.
The 18-year-old qualifier from Britain won the first set 6-4 against 19-year-old Leylah Fernandez of Canada.
Raducanu, the first player in the professional era to make a major final after playing her way into the tournament through the qualifying rounds, still has not dropped a set in the tournament.
Fernandez will have to win a three-setter for the fifth straight round.
The winner is the youngest Grand Slam champion since Maria Sharapova, then 17, at Wimbledon in 2004.
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5 p.m.
Britain’s Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid have become the first team to win a calendar-year Grand Slam in men’s wheelchair tennis.
The top-seeded team beat Gustavo Fernandez of Argentina and Shingo Kunieda of Japan 6-2, 6-1.
Hewett and Reid won the other three major tournaments this year but were stopped in their attempt to win a Golden Slam when they fell to the French team of Stephane Houdet and Nicolas Peifer in a third-set tiebreaker in the Paralympics final.
Dylan Alcott of Australia and Diede de Groot of the Netherlands can still win Golden Slams in wheelchair singles. The No. 1 seeds play their final matches Sunday.
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4:25 p.m.
Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez have started their U.S. Open final, in which one will become the youngest major tennis champion since 2004.
Raducanu, 18, is the first qualifier in the professional era to reach a Grand Slam final.
Fernandez turned 19 during the tournament. This is the first Grand Slam final between teenagers since the 1999 U.S. Open. Serena Williams, 17, beat Martina Hingis, 18, at that tournament for the first of her 23 major singles trophies.
The winner will be the youngest major champion since Maria Sharapova, then 17, at Wimbledon in 2004.
Before the match, female cadets from the U.S. Military Academy unfurled a giant American flag that covered almost the entire court at Arthur Ashe Stadium in a ceremony to remember victims of the 9/11 attacks.
Raducanu and Fernandez were born in 2002, a year after the attacks.
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3:30 p.m.
Joe Salisbury won a U.S. Open doubles title for the second time in two days and Desirae Krawczyk won her third mixed doubles Grand Slam title of the year.
The No. 2-seeded team beat Giuliana Olmos of Mexico and Marcelo Arevalo of Argentina 7-5, 6-2.
It was the second Grand Slam title this year for the pair, who also won the French Open.
Salisbury teamed with American Rajeev Ram to win the doubles title Friday. The British player became the first man since Bob Bryan in 2010 to win the U.S. Open doubles and mixed titles in the same year.
Krawczyk also won the Wimbledon title this year with Neal Skupski. The American became the first to win three Grand Slam mixed doubles titles in a year since Martina Hingis and Leander Paes in 2015.
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2:45 p.m.
American Robin Montgomery has won the girls’ singles title with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over No. 6 seed Kristina Dmitruk of Belarus.
Montgomery, the No. 7 seed from Washington, became the first American to win the U.S. Open title since 2017, when Amanda Anisimova beat fellow American Coco Gauff in the final.
The girls’ tournament was not played last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Montgomery, who turned 17 on Sunday, was back on the court later Saturday trying to also win the girls’ doubles title with partner Ashlyn Krueger.
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1 p.m.
English teen Emma Raducanu’s appearance in the U.S. Open women’s final will be shown live on free-to-air TV back home under a last-minute deal.
Amazon Prime agreed to share its exclusive rights to the event in Britain with Channel 4 in exchange for a payment that the video streaming service has pledged to invest in women’s tennis in the country.
U.K. government ministers had urged Amazon to make Saturday’s final free to viewers.
The 18-year-old Raducanu was born in Canada and her family moved to England when she was 2. She can become the first British woman since Virginia Wade at Wimbledon in 1977 to win a Grand Slam singles title.
Raducanu faces 19-year-old Leylah Fernandez of Canada in the first major tennis final between two teenagers in 22 years.
Channel 4 is a commercially supported but publicly owned broadcaster.
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12:30 p.m.
A pair of unseeded teenagers will meet at the U.S. Open in one of the unlikeliest Grand Slam final matchups in the history of women’s tennis.
The championship will be won Saturday by either 18-year-old Emma Raducanu of Britain or 19-year-old Leylah Fernandez of Canada.
Raducanu is ranked 150th and participating in just her second major tournament. She is the first qualifier — players who earn a spot in the field by winning three matches in preliminary rounds — in the sport’s professional era to reach a Grand Slam final.
The Open era began in 1968.
Fernandez is ranked 73rd and had never been past the third round in her previous six appearances at majors. She has defeated four seeded players along the way, including defending champion Naomi Osaka.
This is the first Grand Slam final between two teenagers since the 1999 U.S. Open. Serena Williams, 17, beat Martina Hingis, 18, at that tournament for the first of her 23 major singles trophies.
Saturday’s winner will be the youngest Grand Slam champion since Maria Sharapova was 17 at Wimbledon in 2004.
A ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11 is scheduled to take place in Arthur Ashe Stadium before the final at about 4 p.m.
A “9-11-01” stencil will be on the court and female cadets from the U.S. Military Academy will unfurl a large U.S. flag during a performance of the national anthem by the “In the Heights” movie co-star Daphne Rubin-Vega while accompanied by Broadway musicians.
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