US Open Day 11: No. 1 seed Iga Swiatek survives scare, will face Ons Jabeur in final

On Thursday, four women battled it out to see who would get to square off in the US Open final. After a late-night battle, the final is set.

No. 1 Iga Swiatek survives Aryna Sabalenka to advance to final

No. 1 seed Iga Swiatek was on the ropes on Thursday. But she battled back from a lackluster first set and a deficit in the third to defeat Aryna Sabalenka, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 and advance to the US Open final against Ons Jabeur.

Sabalenka controlled the opening set after scoring the first break of the match to take a 3-2 lead. She broke Swiatek again in the decisive game to secure a 6-3 win. Swiatek then found her rhythm in the second with an opening break to take a 2-0 lead en route to a 6-1 win to tie the match at 1-1.

But Sabalenka wasn't done after her decisive second-set defeat. She responded by scoring the first break to take a 2-0 lead in the third and decisive set. Swiatek answered with break of her own to tie things up at 2-2. The pair traded breaks again en route to a 4-4 tie. From there, Sabalenka wouldn't win another game.

Swiatek took control at the most crucial juncture of the match and scored 16 of the last 20 points on her way to winning match point on Sabalenka's serve.

A two-time French Open champ who won at Roland Garros this summer, she'll play for her third career Grand Slam title on Saturday. There, she'll face No. 5 Jabeur, who earlier advanced to her second-straight Grand Slam final after playing in July's Wimbledon final, where she lost to Elena Rybakina.

Ons Jabeur smashes through to final

It didn't take very long for Jabeur to advance. In just 66 minutes, she shut 17th-seeded Caroline Garcia down in a 6-1, 6-3 win.

Garcia simply never found a rhythm. She committed a lot of unforced errors, hitting the ball into the net way too often to make it to a Grand Slam final. In the final two games of the first set, Garcia won just a single point, and didn't manage to win another one until the second game of the second set. She did make a bit of a comeback in the second set, battling back to win three games to hold off Jabeur's victory. But it just wasn't enough.

Jabeur just ran over her, hitting the ball with authority. She wasn't perfect, though. She didn't serve strongly, and also made some unfortunate unforced errors. But she played loose and easy, and didn't have to crank the dial up all the way to ten. She'll have more than enough energy left for the final.

For Garcia, this is a disappointing end to a really impressive run. She made it through qualifiers at the Western and Southern Open and went on to win the whole thing, and then kept that streak going through the US Open. In all, she won 13 straight matches.

For Jabeur, this is the continuation of her recent success at Wimbledon, where she played Elena Rybakina in the final. She wasn't able to pull out the win then, but now she'll have another bite at the Grand Slam apple on Saturday.