Can enigmatic Liudmila Samsonova solve Iga Swiatek, reach first Slam quarterfinal at US Open?

NEW YORK—Liudmila Samsonova has long been an enigma.

Part of that is due to her tennis. The 2024 US Open’s sixteenth seed is one of the cleanest ball-strikers in the game, blessed with aesthetic technique and all-court abilities, yet struggles for consistency with pre-quarterfinal exits at all but two of the major and WTA 1000 tournaments in 2024.

“I think I’m closer to understanding,” she said of her ups and downs ahead of a fourth-round clash with world No. 1 Iga Swiatek. “I still need to grow as a person, and then on court we will see. Hopefully, some more results.”

Read more: Is Liudmila Samsonova set up for a 2024 breakthrough?

Her on-court unpredictability translates to interviews, where she can be charming, but painfully brief. An otherwise pleasant chat, her answers terminate without warning, which often leaves her inquiring opponent scrambling to follow up.

“I’m learning how to manage the pressure,” she told me in Cincinnati, her voice high and bouncy. “The pressure I put on myself and also the pressure of the moment, or even the ranking. I think it all comes down to mentality. Of course, to be healthy first, ok. If I’m healthy, I want to work well mentally.

“If I can manage my mental side, I can go through to the end.”

In form from reaching back-to-back WTA 1000 quarterfinals in Toronto and Cincinnati, her mentality was nonetheless tested early in Flushing Meadows when she found herself down a set and 5-2 to Mubadala Citi DC Open finalist Marie Bouzkova.

“I don’t know how I won that match,” she sighed, reflecting on her nearly three-hour second-round tussle. “But when I was there on court, I was feeling that I could do it, honestly. I was feeling like, ‘til the end, I will try to do my best because I felt I had the chance to win even if the score was really down.

“After I won that match, I had so much confidence because I said, ‘I can be really strong, you know?’”

When I stepped on court here for the first time since Cincinnati, I said, ‘Ah, I like these conditions.’ I like the ball with the courts, so I was feeling from the first practice that I could play my best game. Liudmila Samsonova on the US Open

Samsonova admits that clarity has taken work to achieve, citing a Cincinnati defeat to Aryna Sabalenka two weeks ago as a mental inflection point.

“It was a good test, but in the second set, I felt like I was not really there,” she said.

“So, I said to myself, ‘Ok, the next time, I’m going to try and fight until the last point.’”

The fight was on against Ashlyn Kreuger in the third round, shutting out the pro-American crowd and allowing the 20-year-old just two games on Court 17.

“I think that playing against an American is crazy,” she exclaimed. “It’s better not to play one, but the energy is unbelievable, honestly.”

She expected even bigger energy in her last trip to the second week. Projected to face Serena Williams in her final tournament, the Russian-born Samsonova, whose table-tennis playing father moved her family to Italy when she was a year old, was anticipating an Arthur Ashe Stadium debut that never came.

Instead, Williams lost to Ajla Tomljanovic, so too did Samsonova when the two ultimately met on adjacent Louis Armstrong.

She will finally make her Ashe debut on Monday against world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who has won all three of their previous matches. Still, Samsonova has been feeling a certain kismet since arriving in New York last week, walking around Manhattan and even window-shopping for a new pair of earrings.

“When I stepped on court here for the first time since Cincinnati, I said, ‘Ah, I like these conditions,’” she said with a smile. “I like the ball with the courts, so I was feeling from the first practice that I could play my best game.”

And that’s no idle compliment given her open disdain for the slower courts in, say, Montréal, where she reached the final last year. With an affinity for the conditions and a stronger mentality, Samsonova may be ready to win even more matches that may not have gone her way only a year ago.

“Exactly, yes. I approve,” she said when I asked as much. “I totally agree with this because this is what I was searching for.”

Perhaps I’m closer to understanding, too.