New York—Well-balanced and well-spoken, Emma Navarro went to the well during her three-set takedown of defending champion Coco Gauff in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sunday.
Playing a flawless match, the 23-year-old let her game slip late in the second set, as errors drizzled in and Gauff picked up her game.
Suddenly, instead of stealing away with a straight-set victory–which seemed very possible when she served at 6-3, 4-3 deuce, she had to battle it out in a hair-raising deciding set.
The result was a confidence-inspiring victory, her first ever on Ashe, that showed that not only does Navarro have elite tennis strokes, she also has elite mental capacities.
“I think it’s easy to be tough when you’re playing great tennis and everything’s working well, and you’re hitting all your shots well and things are just going smooth, but I think toughness is when you can continue to go after your shots and play aggressive tennis when some doubt creeps in and when you’re not 100 percent sure about just certain shots or how you’re playing,” she told reporters after the 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, win.
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Navarro, who faces Paula Badosa for a spot in the semifinals on Tuesday at the Open, seems to have been born with a steely demeanor. She never looks bothered on the court, even when she dropped the second set, it was clear that she still had both hands on the wheel.
“I think it’s the ability to not get discouraged by things not going your way or by you making mistakes,” she said. “You know, you’re just kind of just unfazed by the things that are happening out there, and just the ability to keep coming point after point, game after game and never hitting that limit of, you know, I’ve missed X amount of this specific shot and I just can’t take it anymore.
“Just not letting that happen.”
It also helps that Navarro has evolved as a player. She possesses the ability to take matters into her own hands on a tennis court, and that wasn’t always true of the former University of Virginia standout.
“I think I’m totally different, definitely as a player,” she said. “I think I play just more aggressive. Like every part of my game has improved.”
The 12th-ranked American lost to Badosa earlier this year on the clay in Rome, but she believes that she has the game to exact her revenge on the 26th-seeded Spaniard. Not only that, she thinks she can do what Coco did last year and win it all this weekend in New York.
“It’s pretty insane just to talk about winning a Grand Slam or winning a tournament like the US Open,” she said. “A few months ago even I wouldn’t have said that. So, yeah, it’s pretty crazy to be sitting here now and have the quarterfinals ahead of me and feel like I’m playing good enough to keep it going.”
