By the time you read this article the 2017 women’s US Open finalists will be determined and we could have the chance of a guaranteed first-time winner if Venus lost. The finalists will be either 9th seed and veteran Venus Williams, who was contesting her ninth US Open semi-final, or Wild Card Sloan Stephens, who was contending only her second ever Grand Slam semi-final, the first being the Australian Open back in 2013. 15th seed Madison Keys or 20th seed Coco Vandeweghe were both contesting their second Grand Slam semi-finals, which came at the Australian Open in 2015 and 2017 respectively.
If Venus makes the final she will understandably be the clear favourite given her career record, experience and form this year having already made two of the three Grand Slam finals at Australia and Wimbledon where she lost against sister Serena and Muguruza. However, is she lost and the final is between Stephens and either Keys or Vandeweghe then we will have a much more open final and probably a much more enjoyable and entertaining one for the fans, as both players will most likely be equally as nervous, which should ensure a pretty close battle that could go the distance.
The men’s semi-finals take place tonight and tomorrow morning and apart from Nadal its safe to say the remaining contenders 12th seed Carreno-Busta (advised 20/1), 24th seed Del Potro and 28th seed Anderson weren’t on many peoples radar pre-tournament. However, this does not mean they are not worthy contenders as Del Potro won here in 2009 and has always been a challenger at the big tournaments when he was fit, Anderson has been knocking on the door of winning a big tournament over the last few seasons and Carreno-Busta definitely looks capable of winning a Slam judging by his form this fortnight and over the last 12 months.
If results follow past statistics then we will have an all-Spanish final between top-seed Nadal and 12th seed Carreno-Busta, as there has been no player seeded higher than 14 in the final over the last decade. However, the odds suggest it will be Nadal and Anderson in the final and hopefully the layers will be wrong at least for the Anderson and Carreno-Busta match having advised the Spanish youngster mid-tournament, while Nadal won’t have it easy against Del Potro given the head-to-head is 8-5 to Nadal and on hard courts its 5-4 to Del Potro who won the last two in 2016 and 2013.
