Badosa Implodes on the Verge of the Semifinals

It was not meant to be for Paula Badosa. The Spaniard, in her second Grand Slam quarterfinal appearance, imploded against Emma Navarro (6-2, 7-5) in a second set to forget.

Badosa, who had the opportunity to reach the US Open semifinals for the first time in her career, held a 5-1 lead in the second set but lost 24 of the last 29 points and tearfully bowed out without forcing a third set against Navarro, the crowd favorite.

The American, one of the wealthiest players on the circuit thanks to her billionaire father, capitalized on Badosa's nerves at both the start and end of the match. She quickly built a 4-1 lead in just over twenty minutes and avoided the only two break points Badosa had, clinching the first set in under half an hour.

Navarro demonstrated perfect balance between generating winners (6) and unforced errors (5), losing only eight points on serve—a lethal recipe to put herself one set away from her first Grand Slam semifinal. Her previous best was reaching the quarterfinals at last year's Wimbledon, and she had not won a single match in her two prior appearances in New York.

Those nerves surfaced at the start of the second set when Navarro committed as many errors in two games as she did in the entire previous set. The match was heading towards a swift conclusion, and before an hour had passed, Badosa, with two breaks in her favor, was on the verge of forcing a third set. She had a 5-1 lead and Navarro appeared defeated. Badosa should have closed it out under Navarro's serve; however, once Navarro stopped the hemorrhage of games, she capitalized on Badosa's doubts and began clawing back point by point. From 5-1 and 15-0 to 5-5, Navarro lost only two points. Completely off-kilter, Badosa even committed two consecutive double faults allowing Navarro to level up, and at 5-6 on the scoreboard, there seemed to be only one possible outcome.

Badosa could not even chase down Navarro's final drop shot. Thanks to this result, Navarro will be ranked at least eighth in the world by the end of the US Open.

Despite the disappointment of how she lost the match, Badosa's American tour has been overwhelmingly positive with fourteen victories in seventeen matches, winning the title in Washington—the first in two and a half years—reaching the semifinals in Cincinnati, and these quarterfinals at the US Open, her second Grand Slam quarterfinal since Roland Garros 2021.

These results allow her to put behind her back injury from early 2023 and rise to twentieth place in the WTA rankings.