Former world No 1 Wozniacki, the runner-up in 2009 and 2014, downed American eighth seed Madison Keys 6-3, 6-4 to make the last-eight in NY for a fifth time.
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Wozniacki in the quarterfinals will face an even bigger surprise, No. 48-ranked Latvian Anastasija Sevastova who on Sunday upset No. 13 seed Johanna Konta 6-4, 7-5. She lost in the second round at New Haven and in qualifying in Cincinnati.
Now ranked at 74 in the world after a right ankle injury sidelined her for nearly three months, Wozniacki hit just seven unforced errors in her win over Keys.
“I was depressed and it just wasn’t fun anymore, but now I’m back”, said Sevastova when asked why she turned her back on the sport.
It was another hard loss for Keys, whose huge game has propelled her into the Top 10 on the WTA rankings, but whose mental game has prevented her from going deep into any of the four grand slams.
“It’s been a good week”, said Wozniacki, who covered the court like her days at the No. 1 ranking.
The two have met once before with Wozniacki winning easily in straight sets at the 2011 Australian Open.
“She’s a tough player”.
“Well, at 6-3, I was like, ‘OK, you’re going to win this one, ‘” Pouille said.
A semi-finalist at the Australian Open in January, the 25-year-old was 3-0 down in the first set and 4-1 behind in the second.
Monfils is quite a character himself: In the middle of one point Sunday, he pretended to lean over to tie a shoelace before quickly resuming play.
He next tackles 10th-seeded compatriot Gael Monfils, a 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 victor over Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis. “I guess I broke the rule and I got a warning for it, but I was just writing a message to my wife”.
It wasn’t something he’d done before, but Baghdatis said he didn’t realize it would cause such a stir.
“When I was younger I used to watch all his matches on (Ashe) and now it’s me”, said Pouille, who has won three successive five-setters to reach the last eight.
Perhaps Baghdatis was just looking for something to take his mind off the contest, in which his 36 percent success rate in putting his first serve in play doomed his chances against the 10th-seeded Monfils. “I (fought) right up to the last ball”, said the No. 4-seeded Nadal, a two-time champion at Flushing Meadows.
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The 26-year-old Latvian returned to the tour in 2015 having retired due to a string of injury problems in the past but having only made the last 16 of a Grand Slam once before in her career, she went one better with her win over Konta setting up a first ever major quarter-final.
