The crowd wanted Coco Gauff but got Elena Rybakina instead

Don’t let them tell you the crowd doesn’t care about the tennis. At the very least, they care about tennis players. Or a tennis player. They care about Coco. The crowd at the US Open women’s semifinals wanted to watch Coco Gauff – a charismatic American star with a buoyant athleticism that belies her strength and an even more buoyant affect that belies her depth – win. After Jessica Pegula fell to Aryna Sabalenka earlier in the evening, Gauff was the only American woman remaining in the tournament. But the enthusiasm for Gauff goes beyond patriotism. At Arthur Ashe, where she won her first grand slam at 19 years old back in 2023, she is beloved. The feeling is mutual. “No disrespect to other tournaments,” Gauff said after the match, “but every US Open is kind of where my mind is.” By then, she had lost, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, to Elena Rybakina, the new No. 1 in the sport. “I enjoyed the atmosphere,” the soft-spoken Rybakina said of her first time playing on Arthur Ashe at night. “Even if the crowd mostly was for Coco.” “Co-co! Co-co!” chanted the crowd after she won the fourth game of the first set. This was when it seemed she might dominate the match. The umpire, in a role that has been regularly tasked with chastising rowdy spectators at the tournament this year, offered a bemused but pointed “Thank you…” in response. About an hour and a half later, with her time in the tournament slipping away, someone yelled “Come on, Coco!” It was a clear and piercing cheer. Supportive, but not celebratory. It didn’t feel fatalistic. Gauff was battling hard, the effort audible as she fended off Rybakina’s steady surge from behind. It was, at times, effective. When she broke the Kazakhstani star’s serve to stay alive in the final set, the crowd couldn’t help leaping to their feet. But then, as the final game unraveled, the cheers became more of a plea. “Come on, Coco!” The impressive thing about live tennis is how fast it is. Except for when it’s slow. When Rybakina sends a volley high into the air and Gauff has time to study the arc and the whole stadium gets impatient for her to just spike the damn ball, which she will as soon as it comes close enough. Or slow like the final flight of a ball that’s been ping ponged back and forth like a whiplash, except now Gauff sees or senses that Rybakina’s strength could be her downfall and lets the line drive go all the way, landing and bouncing harmlessly out of bounds. That trick of time disappears, though for the final point of the night. The game speed is back as Gauff’s last-ditch volley flies just long. Suddenly, it’s over. The impressive thing about Arthur Ashe is how big it is – a cavernous cathedral to tennis. Except when it’s strikingly intimate. They say the media seats are worse than they used to be, bumped out of the lower bowl to make room for more luxury options. But you can still see when a player’s shoulders go from coiled at the ready to released, not in relaxation but in resignation. After every point allowed, there’s a slight slump. And, actually, maybe it is a moment or a millisecond to relax – or, at least, a release, a physical unwinding of the expectations inherent in that rally. On to the next. Until there is no more. The discourse-inspiring but undeniably appealing atmosphere of the US Open is one of fanfare and decadence. The soundtrack, the swell of the collective gasps, even the lighting at night gives it the effect of building toward something big. Tennis matches feel like movie scenes, the tension shifting between easy-to-decipher binaries. It’s a blessing and curse for the sport, how quickly a casual fan can buy in and lend their energy to the ambiance. Except when the night is done and the fan favorite has just fallen to a skilled stoic. “I know you guys wanted Coco to win,” Rybakina said in her immediate post-match comments, still breathing heavily from what had been a worthy fight for a ticket to the final. She called herself lucky. But the fans she was speaking to didn’t hear it. They were already gone, having evacuated the site of collective disappointment faster than seemed possible for a crowd of such size. Gauff gathered her things as quickly as her many supporters did. And somewhere along the way between walking off Arthur Ashe and appearing before the media, her father reminded her that she’s accomplished so many great things this summer, which has been a consistent stretch of success. “I don’t care about the summer,” she told him. She cares about the US Open, about giving these fans what they came to see. “This is the tournament I want to perform at,” Gauff said. “I mean, I did perform, but the one that you want to come out with a win.”