Naomi Osaka demonstrated her growing maturity to fight back against Victoria Azarenka in a compelling US Open final and claim her third Grand Slam title.
Japanese fourth seed Osaka, 22, won 1-6 6-3 6-3 for her second US Open title.
Osaka was overwhelmed in the first set and was in danger of trailing 3-0 in the second before recovering to win 10 of the next 12 games to take momentum.
Belarusian Azarenka, in her first major final since 2013, was broken for 5-3 in the decider before Osaka served out.
Osaka shrieked with joy as she took her second match point, then calmly lay on the court and stared at the New York sky as she contemplated her latest achievement.
Osaka’s level raised considerably as 31-year-old Azarenka was unable to maintain the intensity she showed in a one-sided opening set.
The fightback ensured Osaka, who won the 2018 US Open and 2019 Australian Open, maintained her record of winning every Grand Slam final she has played in.
“I don’t want to play you in any more finals, I didn’t really enjoy that, it was a really tough match for me,” Osaka jokingly told Azarenka.
She added: “It was really inspiring for me because I used to watch you play here when I was younger. I learned a lot, so thank you.”
Not only has Osaka impressed on court during the Cincinnati Masters-US Open bubble in the past month, she has also won many admirers for her activism in the fight against racism and police brutality in the United States.
A few days before the start of the US Open, Osaka pulled out of her Western and Southern Open semi-final in protest at the shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man, by police in Wisconsin.
Before her US Open first-round match, she wore a face mask with the name of Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was shot dead by a policeman in March.
Osaka, who has Japanese and Haitian parents, and was brought up in the United States, said she had seven masks with seven different names.
Source: BBC