Already guaranteed to become No. 1 for the first time on Monday, Angelique Kerber will rise to the top spot in women’s tennis as a first-time United States Open champion, too.
On a muggy Saturday at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Kerber secured the title with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 victory over the No. 10 seed, Karolina Pliskova.
Her triumph made her the first German woman to win the Open since Steffi Graf in 1996, and it put quite a polish on a bright and shiny season in which Kerber, at age 28, has made the difficult leap from outsider to champion.