#BibiRising: From ITF challenger to US Open finalist

The US Open women's singles final could not have brought together two players at two more different points in their careers. Serena Williams, 37, won her first US Open in 1999. Meanwhile, Bianca Andreescu, 19, wasn't even born until 2000.

At last year's US Open, Serena reached the championship match, her second Grand Slam final in a row, and her second since giving birth to her daughter. Andreescu, on the other hand, was ranked outside the Top 200.

Here's how one of tennis' newest stars climbed from No. 243, last October, to having a real shot at becoming a teenage US Open champion:

1

Date: Oct. 16, 2018

Ranking: No. 242

Andreescu's 2018 US Open looked much different from her tournament this year; she lost in the first round of qualifying to Olga Danilovic. She turned things around in her very next tournament, winning the ITF 25k in Florence, S.C. beating Mari Osaka in the final. She went on to make the semifinals of her next two tournaments, both ITFs in Canada.

2

Date: Nov. 13, 2018

Ranking: No. 178

Andreescu then won her last tournament of 2018, too, with a title at the ITF 25K in Norman, Oklahoma. "This one was extra special," she wrote on Instagram.

3

Date: Dec. 31 2018

Ranking: No. 152

But 2019 is where things truly took off on the main tour. And it all started when Andreescu won seven consecutive matches to come through qualifying and make the WTA-level final in Auckland, with back-to-back-to-back wins over Carolina Wozniacki, Venus Williams and Hsieh Su-wei. It was also the first appearance of her now-signature hair-tie-around-the-arm.

4

Date: Jan. 21, 2019

Ranking: No. 106

2019 Record: 11-1

After again coming through qualifying, to make the second round of the Australian Open, Andreescu played the Newport Beach Oracle Challenger while Australia was still going on, and she won that as well, defeating Jessica Pegula in the final.

5

Date: Feb 25, 2019

Ranking: No. 71

2019 Record: 18-2

After going a perfect 2-0 in Canada's Fed Cup win versus the Netherlands, Andreescu reached the semifinals in Acapulco, where she lost to Sofia Kenin, the last time she's lost all year without a retirement or walkover.

6

Date: March 6, 2019

Ranking: No. 60

2019 Record: 21-3

Indian Wells, though, is where Andreescu really started to show Grand Slam–winning potential, stringing seven top-level wins together to win the BNP Paribas Open, the quarters, semis and final being against Garbine Muguruza, Elina Svitolina and Angelique Kerber. On the other side of the Sunshine Double, in Miami, she then beat Kenin, Kerber and  Irina-Camelia Begu, before needing to retire to Anett Kontaveit with a "small shoulder tear" that would disrupt the middle of her season.

7

Date: Aug. 5, 2019

Ranking: No. 27

2019 Record: 32-4

Andreescu only played one tournament between March and August, Roland Garros, where she was forced to withdraw from the second round. But Indian Wells wouldn't be her last big title—she scored six wins in Toronto, her hometown, to win the Premier 5–level Rogers Cup, beating multiple top players before Serena Williams had to retire from the final with back spasms.

8

Date: Sept. 6, 2019

Projected Ranking: No. 8

2019 Record: 44-4

This takes us to the US Open, where, with wins versus Wozniacki, Taylor Townsend, Belinda Bencic and three others, Andreescu finds herself a Grand Slam finalist, with Serena Williams awaiting on Saturday.

There's been a popular hashtag throughout all this, #BibiRising. We could very well almost be at #BibiRisen.