All during the Aleksandra Krunic-Victoria Azarenka match on Monday night, the announcers–Chrissie Evert especially–focused on the how unlikely it was that 21-year-old Aleksandra Krunic was at the US Open at all. Serbia gave her little support–and she had to find a private benefactor to pay her way since she was young. Ranked 145th in the world, Krunic also had to play three matches just to qualify for the Open, so while her opponent Azarenka was playing her third US Open match, Krunic was essentiallly playing her sixth.
What the announcers should have been talking about is how we’re going to see Krunic in these Grand Slam championships for years to come. How she’s going to be the best Serbian tennis player since Novak Djokovic. How her serve is a great fluid athletic motion that will only get better as she gets older and stronger, and how her athletic ability is matched only by her intensity. She has the ambition of the moonshot and the fire of the rockets that launched it. Trained in Moscow, Krunic speaks four languages fluently. Watch out for Krunic. Something about her game looks different now. Stronger.
