Ultimately, the 2024 US Open campaign of Karolina Muchova will be remembered as one of the great Grand Slam runs rather than one of the all-time great Grand Slam triumphs. Having thrilled tennis fans and especially tennis purists (the tennis fans who prioritize style and grace over power and stamina) for almost the entire fortnight, the hugely talented Czech player could not quite close the deal and lost her semifinal to home player Jessica Pegula.
To Pegula The Spoils, But To Muchova The Plaudits
Pegula undoubtedly deserved the victory and if she can go all the way over the weekend and win her maiden Major, having never previously gone beyond the last eight of a Grand Slam tournament, she will have completed a truly incredible hat-trick of victories over world No.1 Iga Swiatek, the world’s in-form player Muchova, and Aryna Sabalenka, probably the world’s greatest hardcourt player.
Nevertheless, for many people the abiding memory of the 2024 US Open, especially on the women’s side of the tournament, will be that of “Marvelous Muchova,” who at times played tennis so close to perfection that it was tempting to rebrand her as “Miraculous Muchova.”
A Tournament of Highlights for the Czech
As with almost all sports in the age of social media, tennis commentators, writers and fans in the 21st century often talk about shots that are so good they make the highlight reel. Well, in New York over the last two weeks, Muchova virtually had a whole highlight reel tournament, so consistently sumptuous had been her play.
It began with what has already been described as not just the shot of the tournament but possibly the shot of the year, namely the running, behind-the-back reaction lob that somehow landed on the baseline in her first-round match against another American, Katie Volynets. If one single shot could somehow sum up the utterly improbable (indeed, almost impossible) inventiveness of Muchova, that was it.
Yet it was only the jewel in a glittering crown of performances by Muchova at Flushing Meadows that culminated in the second week of the tournament. Having defeated two-time US Open champion Naomi Osaka in straight sets in the second round, she then produced arguably the most complete performance by any professional tennis player, male or female, in 2024 in her fourth-round victory over Italy’s Jasmine Paolini.
Paolini, of course, has been the breakthrough player of the season, if not the 2020s so far, on the WTA Tour, displaying so much sheer fighting spirit that she attracted no less a tennis fan than Vogue Editor and Queen of the FedHeds Anna Wintour to watch her against Muchova. But almost immediately, Wintour must have felt like switching horses and supporting Muchova, such was the dazzling quality of the Czech’s serving, volleying and indeed entire all-court game, which took her relatively effortlessly to another straight-sets win.
If Muchova’s quarterfinal victory over Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia was too riven by the illness and mistakes that both players endured to be a classic, she more than made up for it in the first set of the semifinal against Pegula. Truly, this was one of the greatest sets of tennis ever played, especially in the context of a high-pressure, high-stakes Grand Slam semifinal. Muchova bestrode the court like a colossus, reducing even the newly powered-up Pegula, who had dismissed Swiatek in straight sets in her quarterfinal, to the status of a bemused spectator, who could not even join other spectators in applauding her opponent.
Indeed, Muchova’s level of play in that single set was so staggeringly good that it invited comparisons with arguably the high-point of artistic tennis, which is Roger Federer’s final “set” (in reality, five successive games) against Rafael Nadal in the 2017 Australian Open Final, when the great Swiss rallied from 3-1 down against his arch-rival to produce possibly the greatest set (or near-set) of tennis ever played.
But in the End, Muchova Ran Out of Gas – and Magic
Unfortunately for Muchova, whereas Federer’s legendary 2017 final set against Nadal propelled him to the Australian Open title (his first Major triumph in nearly five years and arguably the crowning glory of his entire career), she produced her nearly perfect set of tennis against Pegula in the first set of her match rather than the last one. In the next two sets against the American, her level of play dropped off alarmingly, indeed astonishingly, such that Pegula eventually won them for the loss of just six games in total.
Andrea Petkovic, the former player and ESPN commentator, speculated that Muchova may have injured her back early in the second set, a theory that appeared to be borne out by the regular sight thereafter of Muchova stretching and arcing her back, seemingly to free it. However, it may also simply be the case that having produced such a remarkable series of displays in her first Major tournament since undergoing wrist surgery after last year’s US Open, which led to her being off the tour completely for more than six months, Muchova just lacked the deep and sustained match-fitness to go all the way in a Grand Slam tournament.
If Muchova Can Stay Completely Fit, She Can Definitely Win a Major
If Muchova can finally develop that type of deep fitness, she can definitely win a Major, as her performances in New York in 2024 have demonstrated. However, that is a gigantic “if” for a player who has always struggled with injury, so much so that it took her virtually the first decade of her professional career to really show what she is capable of.
Yet that is now the career-defining challenge for Muchova. Although she ultimately ran out of energy in the 2024 US Open when it seemed that it might just be hers for the claiming, in another sense it is absolutely remarkable that she should perform so outstandingly well in her first Grand Slam tournament in 12 months.
If she can retain all her all-court and seemingly all-shot brilliance, and add to it the pure physical capacity to maintain that brilliance over seven matches and not just five and a bit, Muchova can make the transition from making a great Major run to claiming an all-time great Major triumph. And if she does, tennis purists the world over will join her in celebrating the triumph of a true tennis artist.
Main Photo Credit: Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports
