Aryna Sabalenka is in charge of the first set, women’s U.S. Open final against Corine (“Coco”) Gauff in Arthur Ashe Stadium, Billie Jean King Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows, Queens, N.Y.C.  Facts matter, what and where, more than feeling and prejudice — speculation.

Case in point: while many among a sample of prominent sports writers thought Miss Sabalenka would be in this match when the tournament started and the predictions game was in full swing, only two (in my sample) had Miss G. in it and only one had her opponent right.  Myself (this is only for full disclosure purposes), I never speculate because even if you keep it inside your vest you cannot be sure it will not affect how you report, and perhaps betray the old fair and accurate standard enforced where Mr. Pleszczynski and I still work. (RELATED: Public Servants Should Emulate Men in Doubles)

To my mind Miss Gauff had as good a chance as anyone to be here, but why make an issue of it?  During the key semifinal match she played against the brilliant Karolina Muchova, she won a very long baseline rally — 40 points by the stats — and then I figured she would win it all.

The rally was the tip off even if you felt all along she was a contender. Yet no veteran tennis reporters except Peter Bodo and Matt Fitzgerald thought she would reach the semis. And the obvious response to that was, haven’t you been watching her?

Coco Gauff, a 19-year-old prodigy both of whose parents were college athletes of high rank, had been winning consistently since a brutal loss in the first round at Wimbledon, which followed a quarter-final loss at Roland-Garros to Iga Świątek, who went on to beat Miss Muchova in the final.

A Good Summer

But now Miss Gauff was on a fantastic summer run, Washington Open, a 500-level, winner; Cincinnati Open (Western & Southern), a 1000-level, winner; and before that, a fair run in the Rogers Cup (Canadian Open) where she lost to her friend and doubles partner Jessica Pegula. How could she not be a contender? (RELATED: Incredible Skill and Good Humor: Doubles at the DC Open)

No one seemed to notice (until after it was all over), her father Corey replaced himself as coach with a Spanish pro from Catalonia, Pere Riba. Why him? Because it had almost become conventional wisdom that Mr. Gauff’s daughter’s forehand was inconsistent. She has the fleetest feet on the women’s tour, a terrific backhand, a dangerous serve, but the forehand betrays her. It starts with getting the feet right.  You need a Catalan.

This is barstool stuff, but it is a fact that Spaniards are good at footwork. Soccer, bullfighting, pelota (a form a jai alai), they train their feet the way American sports train our boys’ arms.

It is often easier to get the feet right on the backhand because the backhand involves a natural movement that comes more intuitively than the more mechanical forehand. What this implies is that everything, your whole body, follows the feet to come together as a well-oiled machine. Your feet are free, you play with loose abandon because all is moving well.

Whole body, whole mind. Mr. Gauff made another brilliant move: he asked Brad Gilbert, a great American player of the generation before Riba’s who has followed up with a career as analyst, writer, and coach. Again, not to go to a cliché about this, but Miss G.’s father knew she needed a thinker. Not a sports psychologist — as Mr. Pleszczynski says, they may work once, then they tangle you up — but a mental-side-of-sports guy.

Gilbert, like everyone else, knew — because she herself kept saying so — the teen wonder was lacking in confidence. She knew how well she had been playing since breaking into the pros at 15, but she also quickly found out how heavy the expectations on her were. She was not Serena. She was not Venus — whom she had beaten at 15 in her astonishing debut at Wimbledon; she was not up there yet and who knew if she ever would get there? And the American hype machine was clamoring for a new Serena and when that machine gets going, it can be a wrecking ball.

Gilbert: just play your game. And mess up hers. Whoever she is. Pay attention to your game only, but keep the rallies going, she — whoever — will make the mistake. Play aggressive when possible, but concentrate on defense. It is called winning dirty, but look at what Djokovic does? He wrote the book.

Eventually you will refine your offense and win more gracefully, but first get over this what-am-I-doing-here attitude. You are here because you are one of the best, not an “imposter” (the word is Coco’s.)

And all summer, it worked — the Catalan feet, the Jewish brains. Coco Gauff is as American as Serena, as Althea, and for a summer, she would help herself retool her extraordinary talent, by shouting “Vamos!” and “Oy!” though she used the American translations, “C’mon!” and “Let’s go!”

The Game

Miss Sabalenka, 6-2 in the first set, must have sensed trouble coming when early in the second Miss G. caught what was meant to be a volley winner to the sideline and returned it as a passing backhand for a break point. Shaken, Miss Sabalenka double-faulted to give Miss G. the game, and from then on she reverted to the inconsistent Aryna who has a tendency to appear at these big matches. She continued hitting far more winners than Coco, but piled up the unforced errors. She lost control. (RELATED: The Girls of Summer)

Two Sabalenka forehands thrown away, one into the net the other long, gave Miss G. 4-1, and in a way it was a pity. A great athletic effort in the next game, where Miss S. saved a point by racing back from the net to reach a lob to the baseline and twirling to hit it back into a corner showed what kind of high-powered, skill-for-skill these two could play if they were not, each in her way, concentrating on defense.

But that is tennis. You play the ball as it comes. The full-capacity stadium was roaring for Coco Gauff, as befit the venue, but sometimes you wish they would ease up on the home-girl support just a little. Like the experts who could not place Coco in the finals when the tournament began, the crowds tend to sway too easily with prevailing fashion, lowering the appreciation of the art and hard work that are on display.  Miss Sabalenka is a great player; practically all the experts who misjudged Miss Gauff had her Open run right. And she was under pressure, playing under no flag, paying for other people’s wrongs. The crowd applauded her sometimes, at least they did not boo when she scored. Not easy, though, when you know 23,000 people want you to miss.

Good Behavior

The previous day, in the men’s doubles final, there was a moment that ought to have been shown on one of those giant screens at Ashe on which they project photos of the visiting celebrities and fans caught in funny poses. On a crucial point, Rohan Bopanna, one of the legends of the doubles game, was grazed on the elbow by his partner Matthew Ebden’s serve. No one noticed, the shot was not returned, the ump called the point for them.

Bops, as he is known, informed the ump of the mistake. The ump asked if he wanted the point replayed. This struck Rohan Bopanna as an absurd question, under what rule should it be replayed? The point belonged to the Anglo-American team of Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury. Who eventually won — the first doubles team to take the doubles trophy at the U.S. Open three years in a row.

How much of this sort of sportsmanship rubs off on the fans? How much of the character required for such sportsmanship shows up in public debate and thereafter in the forming of public policy to make us, as a society, more united in love of country? Why are these questions even creeping into a sports column?

Game, Set, Match

However, Miss Gauff took that second set 6-3 and thence it was all over, basically. Miss S. could hit winners, but she threw away chances with messy wild shots. Miss G. did the right thing, played even better, not just waiting for errors but forcing them and growing more aggressive. She ran up a 4-0 lead, and instead of calming down and letting the ladies play like the champs they both are, the crowd got worse.

Well, who am I to judge. They wanted an American win, at least give them that. We make so many mistakes, in a democracy where the checks designed to moderate the populace’s passions are mocked and corrupted by partisans and rascals. Maybe that is who we are.

And there is no doubt, either, Coco Gauff knew she won it because she earned it, and she was in tears, as winners at the Open usually are, and made a point of saying she could not have gotten there without her parents.