‘I'm Going Out on a Limb': Martina Navratilova Eliminates Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka to Name Her US Open Pick

Predicting a Grand Slam winner in the current era of women's tennis is more than just guesswork. With many strong contenders already out of the picture, a new winner at the US Open this year seems very likely. And Martina Navratilova doubled down on it by taking out two of the most obvious picks to place her bet. The 18-time major champion went through a live, on-camera elimination process with Sky Sports. Seven Grand Slam champions are still alive in the draw, and Navratilova had to pick a survivor from each head-to-head pairing until only one name remained. 'So we end up at number one. I'm going out on a limb here, going for the number one player in the world,' Navratilova said, settling on Aryna Sabalenka. It began with her being stuck with Linda Noskova over Osaka, then kept Noskova again over Mirra Andreeva. But the moment the pairings shifted toward the tournament's biggest names, her choices got harder to watch play out. Gauff went first. Rybakina followed. And by the end, Navratilova had traded her way down to just one player left standing. That 'going out on a limb' line reads a little differently once you know what came before it. This wasn't Navratilova picking a favorite off the top of her head. A week earlier, on August 31, she had told Sky Sports that Iga Swiatek would win the whole tournament, calling Osaka her dark horse and adding that Swiatek 'is in great form right now.' By the time she sat down for this exercise, Swiatek wasn't even part of the conversation. Navratilova admitted the shift herself, before still backing Sabalenka to get past her. It's a change that says something about how unpredictable this year's draw has looked. Sabalenka arrives as the two-time defending champion and has already booked her quarterfinal spot, setting up a clash with sixth seed Noskova. Gauff moves on to face 14th seed Iva Jovic after handling Cristina Bucsa in straight sets. Osaka needed three sets to get past Elise Mertens before her own fourth-round clash with Rybakina. Though not everyone watching this tournament sees it the way Navratilova does. Shane Black of Last Word on Sports admitted he nearly picked against Sabalenka entirely. He pointed to how open the bottom half of the draw is, and argued that her rough stretch in Toronto and Cincinnati might have only sharpened her ahead of New York. His colleague at the outlet, Amanda Bergman, took the opposite view. She noted Sabalenka has lost before the quarterfinals in her last three events and called her current form a genuine danger sign heading into the back half of the tournament. Bergman instead pointed to Gauff, who's carrying momentum from Cincinnati and a near-miss at Wimbledon into a draw where the past two Cincinnati champions have gone on to win the Open. Gauff in 2023, and Osaka in 2018 and 2020. Navratilova had every chance to hedge toward that same logic. Instead, she walked her pick all the way down to one name, dismissing two former champions and even her own week-old forecast along the way. Whether the Grand Slam actually goes with her opinion is another question entirely. As far as this exercise went, she wasn't interested in sitting on the fence. This article first appeared on EssentiallySports and was syndicated with permission.