NEW YORK – American Emma Navarro reached her first Grand Slam semifinal at the U.S. Open on Tuesday, defeating Spaniard Paula Badosa 6-2, 7-5.
Navarro, seeded 13th and having never won a main draw match at her home major before this year, advanced to Thursday’s semifinals where she will face second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka or seventh-seeded Qinwen Zheng.
Navarro, who knocked out defending champion Coco Gauff in the fourth round, needed 29 minutes to win the first set, but 26th-seeded Badosa took a 5-1 lead in the second set.
Navarro then won six games in a row, scoring 24 of the last 28 points, while Badosa’s game fell apart.
“After coming back to 5-2, I had a little inkling that it was going to be two sets… even if I lost the second, I wanted to set the tone for the third set,” Navarro said. “I can’t see into the future, but maybe a little bit today.”
It was a career year for Navarro. He reached at least the third round in all four Grand Slams, including the fourth round at Roland Garros and a quarterfinal appearance at Wimbledon. And he did this after never having made it past the second round at a major.
Navarro, who played two years at Virginia, is the third former college player in the last 40 years to reach the semifinals of the U.S. Open, joining Oklahoma State’s Lori McNeil in 1987 and UCLA’s Jennifer Brady in 2020.
Her victory capped an impressive summer season for Badosa, who entered Tuesday having won 24 of her last 30 matches since the tournament in Rome in May, with highlights including a WTA 500 title in Washington and a semifinal appearance in Cincinnati before her run at Flushing Meadows.
ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
