Amanda Anisimova played only nine tennis matches last year. In search of stability, structure and, well, joy, she took an indefinite break from the sport for nine months and her ranking tumbled outside the Top 350.
On Monday at the National Bank Open, Anisimova will face defending champion and World No.6 Jessica Pegula for a WTA 1000 title. It will be her 10th match in a sizzling span of 17 days.
There couldn’t be a more surprising narrative. The 22-year-old American is the lowest-ranked finalist (No.132) in the past four decades at the Canadian Open and the second-lowest-ranked finalist in a WTA 1000 event since the format came into being 15 years ago.
The No.3-seeded Pegula, who defeated No.14 Diana Shnaider 6-4, 6-3, will be a tough out. She’s now a ludicrously good 16-2 at the Canadian Open and can become the first woman to win Montreal and Toronto in back-to-back years since Martina Hingis in 1999 and 2000.
And so, in a Throwback Monday, two American women will feature in the Canada final for the first time since 2001, when Serena Williams met Jennifer Capriati.
WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen and Greg Garber make the case for each finalist.
Head to Head
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The Case for Pegula
Make no mistake, this may be an all-American final in Canada, but Pegula is the one with homecourt advantage. The Canadian Open has emerged as her best event by far, and it's hard to argue with a 16-2 record at the event. Some players excel when the tournament is Montreal and some when it's Toronto, but Pegula is the rare player that can pile up wins at both venues. It's just another example of her outstanding resilience and versatility.
"It feels like home," Pegula said. "I like the atmosphere, I like the courts, I like the cities that we go to, everything seems kind of easy. I have a base in Buffalo, which is not that far from here, it's not super far from Montreal either. I think it's just I'm comfortable up in the northeast kind of area.
"I just enjoy playing here, and I think the conditions kind of suit my game maybe with a little bit of a faster hard court, which I think benefits me as well."
Pegula will be the first to tell you she's made this final without her best stuff. But she also hasn't needed it. She hasn't lost a set all week and she's handled the unpredictable conditions from day-to-day like the veteran she is.
Both players are clean strikers from the baseline, but I have to give the edge to Pegula's experience. She's spent less time on the court this week and has the ability to force Anisimova to hit her big shots from uncomfortable positions. It's notable that Anisimova took a medical timeout in her semifinal to address some blisters on her feet.
"She's probably one of the biggest, cleanest ball strikers I've ever played against, so when she's on it can be really, really tough," Pegula said.
"Tomorrow definitely is going to be a battle, and I'm going to have to do my best to just make her play a lot of extra balls, and try to be aggressive when I can, because when she's on she can hit a lot of winners and take the racquet out of your hand sometimes, so I'm going to have to be smart tomorrow." -- Courtney Nguyen
The Case for Anisimova
One thing is for certain: Anisimova will not go into her first WTA Tour 1000 final carrying any whiff of fear.
Look at the quality that goes with that impressive quantity of her recent matches. No one has defeated more Top 20 players in a single run at the Canadian Open -- No.2 seed Aryna Sabalenka, No.5 Daria Kasatkina, No.8 Navarro and No.10 Anna Kalinskaya.
And while Pegula has a 2-0 edge in head-to-head play, be advised that their second match earlier this year in Charleston came down to a third-set tiebreaker.
“I know that I left feeling very proud of myself," Anisimova said. "Even though I lost that match, I was playing really well, and I think overall it was a good experience. So, yeah, there are some things I can take away from that match going into tomorrow.”
Anisimova’s playing with great confidence but, more importantly, she’s whistling her way through when adversity presents itself. Facing down Navarro in the deciding third set, Anisimova stood tall.
In the critical third game of the last set, amid fierce wind, Anisimova showed both extraordinary patience and perseverance. In a nearly 12-minute game that saw seven deuces, she converted her fourth break point for what turned out to be a definitive lead.
Those gusting winds, Anisimova said, were stressful.
“I was trying to keep myself together, it was so difficult,” she said. “When you’re not able to play the tennis that you know how to play, I mean, it was just kind of like a gambling game.”
The tears in her eyes afterward were a testament to what this means to her. It’s her first final in more than two and one-half years.
Anisimova’s take-it-early style of play, when it’s working, is breathtaking. A Tennis Channel graphic in the second set showed that Anisimova’s average point of contact was actually inside the baseline -- more than four feet closer to the net than Navarro’s.
It was too much pressure for Navarro (and Sabalenka and Kasatkina and Kalinskaya) and, it says here, Courtney, for Pegula as well.
Anisimova was a decorated junior and destined, it seemed, for great things. She has talked about her goals of winning a Grand Slam and reaching No.1 in the rankings. She’s only 22 -- the age of a typical college senior -- so it’s all still possible.
“I knew that when I stepped away that I really wanted to come back and I didn’t want to finish my career on that note, there was still a lot that I wanted to achieve,” Anisimova told reporters. “And just not finish at such a young age, because I had sacrificed so much and given so much to the sport.
“Just knowing that if I try my best and just keep playing that hopefully that will come one day.” -- Greg Garber
