Sloane Stephens, who many had on the radar as a future champion, failed to come through her early career, before the promise that was there, go further derailed when injury set her back to a ranking of 957 in the world.
This season, slowly started to come to shape in the form of a return to Wimbledon before she performed really well leading up to the US Open, but nobody foresee what was coming at Flushing Meadows.
By the time she entered the 4th grand slam of the season, Stephens had gone up to 83rd in the world rankings, and as she worked her way through a field of players that had performed well on the WTA circuit this season, her test was a tough 3 set victory over former winner, Venus Williams.
With 4 American players, 3 of which were sure of making a debut in the US Open final, in the semi-finals for the first time since 1981, Stephens took on best mate Madison Keys, who, like Stephens, had made a return to the tour after serious injury.
Stephens, who was the more composed of the two players, took the first set 6-3 and sealed victory over the 15th seed by winning the title with a 6-0 win in the second.
The 24 year old who embraced her friend at the net after, took home her biggest ever pay day of over £3 million.
Afterwards at the ceremony Stephens said “I had surgery in January and if someone and if someone had told me then that I would win the US Open, I would have said it was impossible.”
