Mumbai: Aryna Sabalenka was clear about why she chose to skip the Paris Olympics. Having recovered from a shoulder injury that forced her to miss Wimbledon, the Australian Open champion felt it would be “too much for the scheduling” to compete at the Olympics and the US Open within a month.

She watched from afar as Coco Gauff, USA’s co-flagbearer at the Paris opening ceremony alongside LeBron James, tearfully crashed out in the singles third round and returned medal-less from her three-event Games. Iga Swiatek, the reigning French Open champion and the runaway gold medal favourite on her return to Roland Garros for the Olympics, “cried for like six hours” after losing her singles semi-final and eventually settling for bronze.

And once she came back, Sabalenka cruised to grab the WTA Cincinnati Open, the US Open leadup event in which Swiatek lost to Sabalenka in the semis and Gauff was stunned in the second round.

Gauff is the defending champion of the season-ending Grand Slam. Swiatek is the world No. 1 and the year’s most dominant player. Both have been through a rollercoaster of emotions and results during and after the Olympics while Sabalenka sat back, recharged and returned fresh and in form. That, by no means, places the favourite tag firmly on the world No.2 for this US Open starting Monday. But in an unpredictable Slam that hasn’t seen a two-time women’s singles champion in the last decade except for Naomi Osaka, it could give the Belarusian a bit of a head start over her two main rivals.

Consistent run

What’s more, Sabalenka has arguably been the most consistent of the trio on the hard courts of New York without the champagne. She’s piled up a 16-3 win-loss record across the last three editions, going as far as the semi-finals at least. In 2022 she was stopped by eventual champion Swiatek. Last year she went a step further only to blow a one-set lead in the final against Gauff.

A two-time Slam champion Down Under now, the hard-hitting baseliner is hungry to get up and running at Flushing Meadows this time.

“Those tough losses definitely motivated me a lot to work hard and to improve things which didn’t work in the previous years,” Sabalenka said.

What’s also different from the previous years is that Sabalenka comes in with a title to boot on American hard courts after winning in Cincinnati without dropping a set. Last year’s Cincinnati champion went on to capture the US Open too. That was Gauff living up to the potential that many saw in the American teen, fittingly in her home Slam at 19. Her trajectory since, however, has hardly been as uplifting.

Gauff began this season with a title triumph and stopped at that. She lost in the semis of the Australian Open (to Sabalenka) and French Open (to Swiatek) before being taken out in the Wimbledon Round of 16 by Emma Navarro. Post the Wimbledon and Olympics downer, Gauff hasn’t put two wins together, losing to Diana Shnaider in Toronto and Yulia Putintseva in Cincinnati.

Lessons in Paris

Returning to her home Slam as defending champion can be daunting, and Gauff’s been taking lessons from USA’s best in track and field during her time with them in Paris.

“I think that what you’re feeling isn’t so isolated, just being around elite athletes and what they do,” Gauff said in New York. “You realise nerves are normal, the pressures are all normal. It doesn’t make them easier, but it helps to know you’re not carrying the weight alone.”

Swiatek certainly isn’t carrying any weight on her shoulders. Not after the emotionally overwhelming Olympics experience. Not after the underwhelming Cincinnati outing. The US Open is the only Slam the five-time major champion has won outside the red dirt of Roland Garros, even though the world No.1 is yet to fully sync her game to the faster hard courts. But that 2022 trophy run did prove something to the Pole, which she hopes to carry this time.

“The US Open 2022 actually taught me that I can win even though I’m not feeling 100 percent. I’m trying to learn from past experiences. I feel like I’m maybe a little bit smarter and, hopefully, I’m going to be able to use that,” Swiatek said.

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