After saving a match point in a five-set win in his last outing, Wawrinka was cruising against 63rd-ranked Illya Marchenko, who was playing in his first Grand Slam round of 16.
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It took her a while to finish off this one, despite going up an early break in the third set and leading 4-2. He proceeded to win the next four games to regain control on the way to a 6-4, 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-3 victory Monday.
“He will be the favorite to win in that match”, said del Potro, who beat Wawrinka at Wimbledon. “Tactically, played a good match”, Murray said. Entering the US Open with concerns over her serving shoulder, the 22-time major victor hasn’t been broken through four rounds and uncorked the fastest serve of the women’s tournament at 126 miles per hour (203 kph).
At 36, Williams would have been the oldest woman to reach the quarterfinals at any major since Martina Navratilova was 37 at Wimbledon in 1994.
The fifth-seeded Romanian won 6-2, 7-5 on Monday.
“At the beginning of the match it was basically ok but.it got worse and worse”.
It was a David and Goliath clash of physical opposites, but the 211cm Karlovic’s game, apart from his prodigious serve, was overshadowed by the skills of the 178cm Nishikori.
Del Potro was handed an easy passage into the last-eight when Dominic Thiem retired from their encounter midway through the second set while trailing 6-3 3-2.
Williams, meanwhile, suffered one of the toughest losses of her 20-year career – not capitalizing on a match point in a 4-6 6-4 7-6 (7-3) reverse to Karolina Pliskova – and given her age, 36, one couldn’t help but wonder if it was her final US Open.
Murray continued where he left off in the second, breaking in the first game for an early lead, though an out-of-sorts Dimitrov did manage to get himself on the board, having broken back to trail 3-1.
Thiem, who turned 23 on Saturday, has had a breakthrough year, reaching the French Open semifinals and cracking the top 10. But all those victories came with a cost a tour-high 69 matches, and the long season had started to wear on his body.
Thiem attempted to continue but after a brief discussion with trainers called it a day, shaking Del Potro’s hand and exiting the court.
Del Potro, the 2009 U.S. Open victor, whose career has been interrupted by a series of wrist operations and needed a wild card to get into the year’s last grand slam, has made the most of his opportunity by reaching the last eight without dropping a set.
Still exhausted after the stunning run to an Olympic silver medal that announced him as a contender again, he got a huge break Monday in spending only 72 minutes on court. He’s played just 10-plus sets through four rounds.
The Argentine, who won the silver medal at the Olympics a couple of weeks ago after losing to Andy Murray in the final, needed a wildcard to play the tournament which he won back in 2009 due to his world ranking of 142 – which is a result of a series of wrist injuries.
Juan Martin del Potro, Andy Murray and the Williams sisters are among those seeking to book their spots in the quarterfinals on Labor Day Monday at the U.S. Open.
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The 2012 champion at Flushing Meadows will face No. 6 seed Kei Nishikori in the quarterfinals Wednesday. Then top-seeded Serena meets 52nd-ranked Yaroslava Shvedova.
