Sylvain Bruneau sat in the players’ box Saturday at Arthur Ashe Stadium and watched as Bianca Andreescu tried to hold off a Serena Williams comeback during the U.S. Open final.
Andreescu’s coach said he was a little worried as the 19-year-old Canadian, who had a 5-1 lead in the second set before Williams started to come back, attempted to put the 23-time Grand Slam champion away.
“I knew Bianca was going to keep doing her things and keep doing things the right way, but there’s also, as you mentioned, Serena Williams on the other side of the net,” Bruneau said Monday morning on Sportsnet 590 The Fan’s Starting Lineup. “She’s a legend so she has her say in how this match will go. So that was for sure a bit stressful.”
Williams clawed her way back to 5-5 before Andreescu held serve and then broke Williams to win 6-3, 7-5 for her first career Grand Slam.
Andreescu, from Thornhill, Ont., became the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title with the victory.
Bruneau said Williams deserves most of the credit for the second-set push, but Andreescu was also struggling to land her serve.
“She’s only human,” Bruneau said of Andreescu’s nerves as she tried to close out the match.
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He said the last couple of days since the victory have been a lot of fun and that it’s also a new process to everyone on Andreescu’s team.
Bruneau isn’t worried about whether the attention coming from a victory of this scale will change the young Canadian.
“She’s a very grounded individual, so are her parents and the team around her,” he said.
“She needs to stay on business and I think she will. I think she will, because we’ve already discussed this, she’s prepared for it and I think she’s going to make the right decisions.”
