NEW YORK -- It’s appropriate the two most dominant players of the year will play the last match of this season's last Grand Slam. Iga Swiatek has more wins than anyone else on tour and can become the first woman to win two majors in a single season since Angelique Kerber did it six years ago. Ons Jabeur, second behind Swiatek in wins, is playing in her second straight major final.

No one is trending this year in tennis quite like Jabeur. Before making the Wimbledon final, Jabeur had played in 20 Grand Slam tournaments and never progressed past the quarterfinals. On Saturday, she takes on Swiatek (4 p.m. ET) for the US Open title. 

This one, Jabeur said, already feels different.

“Feels more real, to be honest with you just to be in the finals again,” she told reporters after defeating Caroline Garcia 6-1, 6-3 in the semifinals. “At Wimbledon I was kind of just living the dream, and I couldn’t believe it. Even just after the match, I was just going to do my things and not realizing it was an amazing achievement already.

Swiatek vs. Jabeur: Who has the advantage in the US Open final?

“But now just I hope I’m getting used to it, just happy the fact that I backed up the results in Wimbledon and people are not really surprised I’m in the finals, but just going and going and just doing my thing.”

Jabeur will do her thing one more time Saturday afternoon at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center when she faces Swiatek, who fought through a difficult semifinal, but played her best tennis down the stretch. 

Advantage whom? WTA Insider Courtney Nguyen and Greg Garber each make a case for their victory.

Advantage, Swiatek

Greg, let me just quote Jabeur herself:

“You know, Iga never loses finals, so it's going to be very tough.”

In the past two years, no one has been able to stop the Swiatek train on championship weekend. She has not come close to losing a set in her past nine finals, which includes two Roland Garros titles and five WTA 1000s. In their only match this year in the Rome final, Swiatek recalls the match being “really tight.”

Swiatek won it 6-2, 6-2.

Look, I’m not blind. I’ll concede that Jabeur has looked in better form all tournament. This has not been the Swiatek we saw run roughshod over the tour for the first half of the season. She has had to scratch and claw her way through as she battled herself, the opponents and the conditions.

“Here I just try to accept maybe that sometimes I'm not going to trust myself,” Swiatek said, “and I still needed to prove to myself in a couple of matches against heavy hitters, to see how it's going to go and maybe come back a couple more times.”

Swiatek has done her best with what she has on any given day and her problem-solving has been impressive. Unlike Jabeur, Swiatek has beaten not one, but two Top 10 players in New York. A win Saturday would be her 10th straight against Top 10 opposition. 

"In Indian Wells, I had a pretty similar situation, because it's so dry out there that I had also a hard time controlling the ball,” Swiatek said. “At the end, I did. I played some three-set matches, but still I was the one to win it. It's something that I needed, that I didn't have when I was younger, to actually be able to sometimes, maybe not win ugly, but win when you're not feeling 100% on.

On Saturday, Swiatek, 21, has a chance to be the youngest player to hold three career majors in the same season since Maria Sharapova (who was 20 when she won the 2008 Australian Open). All signs point to Swiatek further cementing herself as one of the game's "biggest champions." -- Courtney Nguyen

Advantage, Jabeur

As you know, Courtney, it’s a bottom-line business.

Well, Jabeur has simply won more matches over the past two years than any other player -- 92. More than Swiatek, more any of the six different Grand Slam champions that have been crowned over that time. And now, she’s poised to become the seventh.

Jabeur ousts Garcia to reach second straight Grand Slam final

A lot of people (including me) thought Garcia had a chance to win this thing. She was the hottest player in tennis, with a streak of 13 consecutive victories going back to Cincinnati, but Jabeur threw cold water on her, beating her at her own power game.

There were eight aces, 21 winners -- and for the first time in her 57 matches this year, Jabeur did not yield a single break point. At the same time, she won 42 of the 67 rallies of four shots or fewer.

For the tournament, Jabeur has a stout 34 aces -- and has won return games 55 percent of the time (31-for-56). Those are nice numbers to have going into the last Grand Slam match of the year.

“But she did read very well my serve, always bringing back the first serve,” Garcia told reporters. “Didn’t give me a lot of points. That’s what it feels like. I had no free points.

“Her placement and target are really good. She mixed it up pretty good. Her ball toss is pretty low, so it’s kind of weird to read, kind of unusual. It does not bounce very high, so it’s pretty low on slice. Yeah, it’s a combination of everything.”

Jabeur has split her four matches against Swiatek, with the two-time French Open champion winning their last meeting.

The loss to Elena Rybakina in the Wimbledon final had a lingering effect on Jabeur -- and I suspect, in the larger picture, that was a good thing. Jabeur was in a funk in the summer hard-court season, losing three of five matches in San Jose, Toronto and Cincinnati. But here at the US Open, she’s rediscovered her rhythm, her eclectic verve.

As the first African and Arab woman to progress to these highest levels of professional tennis, Jabeur has received a great deal of attention. But as Garcia noted, it comes with a price.

 “I’m sure it’s a lot of pressure on her shoulder,” Garcia said. “But she looks like to be managing it really well.”

The win against Ajla Tomljanovic -- who took out Serena Williams in the third round -- in the quarterfinals featured a 10-8 tiebreak win in the first set that underlined her determination. That will, that want-to will carry Jabeur to a first major title come Saturday. -- Greg Garber