By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis Reporter
NEW YORK — Top-seeded Jannik Sinner reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals by overcoming a slow start to prevail in tiebreakers that decided the first two sets, then breaking away to beat No. 14 Tommy Paul 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5), 6-1 on Monday night.
Two weeks after being cleared of doping charges stemming from two positive tests in March, Sinner embarked on a showdown with 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev, the only former Flushing Meadows winner still in the men’s category.
Sinner, a 23-year-old Italian, won his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January, beating Medvedev in five sets in the final after losing the first two. They also met in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon in July, with Medvedev prevailing.
“There’s going to be a lot of running,” Sinner said, “so hopefully I’ll be ready physically.”
Against Paul, Sinner was not at his best from the start, finding himself 4-1 down by a double break after 20 minutes at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“This is where you want to be. It’s really different than any other environment,” Paul said. “It’s electric.”
A noisy crowd supported the American, unsurprisingly.
As the match progressed, there were numerous chants of “USA!” and “Let’s go, Tommy! Let’s go!”. There were also several moments when spectators applauded Sinner’s errors—considered a lack of tennis etiquette, earning repeated reprimands from the chair umpire, who pleaded for no noise between the first and second serves.
Sinner finished the first set with 15 unforced errors on his forehand alone, but he quickly made up for that and closed out the match with just six errors for the remainder of the match.
“There’s obviously ups and downs in best-of-five games. That’s normal,” Sinner said. “But finding my rhythm late in the game will hopefully help me in the next game.”
It all came down to tiebreakers. The first set ended tied 3-3, before Sinner won the last four points. Paul led 5-4 in the second set, but Sinner won the last three points.
Sinner has won 14 of his last 15 tiebreaks, a run that dates back to a tournament in Halle, Germany, in June. The only exception was his loss to Medvedev at Wimbledon.
Sinner lost the first set played at the US Open, but won the next 12.
Paul was seeking his third career quarterfinal appearance and his first at Flushing Meadows. He was also trying to become the first American to beat a No. 1 seed at the U.S. Open since Andre Agassi knocked off Lleyton Hewitt in 2002.
Instead, Paul fell to 0-6 in major tournaments against players ranked in the top 10.
“I had opportunities in the first set, obviously, and in the second set,” Paul said. “But he took the lead on the important points, and I didn’t. That was kind of the story of the match.”
Sinner improved his record to 32-2 with four hard-court titles in 2024 and he has now reached at least the quarter-finals of all four Grand Slams this year.
Earlier Monday, fifth-seeded Medvedev crushed Nuno Borges, 6-0, 6-1, 6-3, in a match that was briefly interrupted early in the third set — like every other match in progress at that point — because of a fire alarm in the building that houses the electronic line-calling system.
The manner of the victory is far from that of the Australian Open, where Borges managed to take a set from Medvedev, since he committed 10 double faults and 51 unforced errors.
“To be honest, he played worse (than in Melbourne),” Medvedev told reporters. “Even based on statistics, he made a lot of unforced errors and a lot of double faults. Everyone makes double faults here, probably because of the condition of the balls.”
“Especially in some games, there were maybe two or three, so it makes it easy to break. I managed to serve a lot better than the previous days, so I didn’t give him that opportunity to come back. It’s a little bit more pressure.”
The other quarter-final in the top half of the men’s draw will see No. 10 Alex de Minaur take on No. 25 Jack Draper. De Minaur beat Jordan Thompson 6-0, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in an all-Australian encounter, while Draper became the first Briton to reach the US Open quarter-finals since Andy Murray in 2016 by beating Tomas Machac 6-3, 6-1, 6-2.
“I obviously miss Andy. A big thank you to Andy. What an incredible career that guy has had. He’s a true icon of the game. I miss him in the dressing room. I miss being around his stinking boots and all his stinking clothes,” said Draper, who will face No 10 Alex de Minaur or Jordan Thompson, two Australians due to face off on Monday. “Andy’s a legend and if I have half his career then I’ll be a happy man.”
Tuesday’s men’s quarterfinals feature No. 4 Alexander Zverev against No. 12 Taylor Fritz, and No. 9 Grigor Dimitrov against No. 20 Frances Tiafoe.
PEGULA BACK IN THE QUARTER-FINALS
Jessica Pegula is back in the quarterfinals after a 6-4, 6-2 win over Diana Shnaider, her seventh appearance in this round at a Grand Slam tournament. Now comes the tough part: Pegula is 0-6 in major tournament quarterfinals in her career – and that next meeting comes against top seed Iga Swiatek.
Sixth-seeded Pegula, an American whose parents own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, is on a roll right now, winning 13 of her last 14 matches, all on hard courts. That includes her second straight Canadian title and an appearance in the Cincinnati Open final, where she lost to second-ranked Aryna Sabalenka.
“I feel like the pressure is higher this year because I played really well before this tournament,” said Pegula, 30, the oldest player still in the competition. “I want to keep working and hopefully I can bring my best tennis to the next rounds this time around.”
On Monday night, Swiatek was tied 4-4 with No. 16 Liudmila Samsonova before winning seven straight games to prevail 6-4, 6-1. When Swiatek won the 2022 US Open for one of her five Grand Slam titles, she knocked off Pegula in the quarterfinals.
“She has a pretty tricky style of play, so you really have to work your legs and be ready for longer rallies but also for intense shots,” Swiatek said of Pegula. “It will be a challenge.”
Half of Pegula’s six Grand Slam quarter-final exits have come against a No. 1 player – Swiatek twice and Ash Barty once.
“I’m going to try to draw from those experiences and how I felt going into the next game, but it’s so hard,” Pegula said. “I mean, I know you don’t want cliché answers, but it’s one game at a time, and every day is different. It depends on who you’re playing, the conditions, when you’re playing. There are so many variables on a daily basis.”
Karolina Muchova also returned to the quarterfinals, beating No. 5 Jasmine Paolini, a finalist at Roland Garros and Wimbledon this season, 6-3, 6-3. Muchova will next face No. 22 Beatriz Haddad Maia, who beat 2018 Australian Open champion Caroline Wozniacki 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 to become the first Brazilian to reach the quarterfinals of the US Open since Maria Bueno in 1968.
Haddad Maia is a 28-year-old left-hander who was banned for 10 months after failing a drug test in 2019. She was a semi-finalist at Roland Garros last year but had not advanced past the second round at Flushing Meadows until now.
Muchova enjoyed a breakthrough year in 2023, reaching the final in Paris and the semi-finals in New York, before having surgery on her right wrist in October that kept her sidelined for 10 months.
“It was my worst and most serious injury, I would say. But I love this sport, so in my head I was like, ‘I’m going to do everything I can to get better and try.’ And here I am today,” said Muchova, whose U.S. Open ended a year ago with a loss to eventual champion Coco Gauff. “I’m just a very happy kid now.”
Gauff was seeded No. 3 this year and was eliminated Sunday by No. 13 Emma Navarro.
It all went in Pegula’s favor against No. 18 seed Shnaider, a 20-year-old Russian who played one season of college tennis at NC State and won a silver medal in women’s doubles at the Paris Olympics.
Pegula had 22 winners, six aces, saved seven of the nine break points she faced and won five of Shnaider’s service games.
“My movement has really improved, which has really helped me stay in a lot of points, sets and games and be super consistent,” Pegula said. “I’ve been serving pretty well. Even if it doesn’t work out, I’ve been able to get out of service games by serving smart or serving well in big moments like today where she was returning really well.”
Swiatek, the French Open champion who skipped the Toronto warm-up, said she felt she had finally found her groove in New York.
“At the beginning it was not easy to find the rhythm, especially because we were more focused on recovery than on training before the Grand Slams,” she said.
“I definitely feel better and better every day.”
REIGNING DOUBLE CHAMPIONS ARE ELIMINATED
Three-time reigning US Open men’s doubles champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury were eliminated in the third round by 13th-seeded American duo Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow, 7-6 (3), 6-3.
Ram, who is American, and Salisbury, who is British, have won a combined 20 straight matches at Flushing Meadows. They were seeded third this year.
A year ago, they became the first men to win three consecutive US Open doubles titles since Americans Tom Bundy and Maurice McLoughlin from 1912-14.
In the quarterfinals, Lammons and Withrow will face the 11th seed pair of Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic.
Koolhof and Mektic were the last team to defeat Ram and Salisbury in New York, in the semifinals in 2020.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
