Wawrinka was staring a defeat, with Evans leading 6-5 in the fourth set.
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And, if you want to hear something that should frighten Williams’ upcoming opponents next week, this is how she described her first week at the U.S. Open when asked if she could give herself a grade: “I feel OK”.
Williams’ win over Larsson was her 307th career victory in a Grand Slam event, which surpassed Martina Navratilova for the most in women’s history and tied Roger Federer for the most ever overall.
But the United States superstar has been slowed by a right shoulder injury since her Wimbledon triumph.
Top-seeded Serena Williams is feeling and playing like Wonder Woman – wearing neon pink sleeves – and hasn’t lost her serve in three matches here.
Williams will go for win number 308 on Tuesday (AEST) when she meets Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova – a 6-2, 7-5 victor over China’s Zhang Shuai – in round four.
Konta admits that she is still recovering from the “traumatic experience” of her second-round match, when she collapsed on court, was hyper-ventilating and needed ice treatment.
“So far, so good”, said Williams, pronouncing the shoulder “definitely solid”.
“I think a lot of it has to do with just my mentality”.
Fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland overcame France’s Caroline Garcia 6-2, 6-3 and will face Ana Konjuh of Croatia next.
It took three sets for Simona Halep to advance to the fourth round.
“It’s always good to win by saving match-point”.
Thiem blasted 47 winners, 20 in the last set, on his way to a 1-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-5 victory over 39th-ranked Pablo Carreno Busta.
Seeded No. 1, Williams is one trophy away from winning her 23rd Grand Slam singles title, which would break a tie with Steffi Graf for the most championships in the Open era. “In my career I have just been, you know, here for so long”. I wasn’t going for too much.
Murray takes on Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, a 6-4, 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 victor over Portugal’s Joao Sousa, for a quarterfinal berth.
The sixth-seeded Williams came up big on the critical points to make quick work of Siegemund in a 6-1 6-2 victory in Arthur Ashe Stadium. That cost me in the first and second sets.
During her break of almost two years, Sevastova took classes in Austria in “leisure management” – studying accounting and marketing in hopes of perhaps going into sports management.
Del Potro, the 2009 champ who returned to Grand Slam competition this year after missing 2 1/2 years of major tournaments because of operations on his left wrist, had little trouble beating 11th-seeded David Ferrer 7-6 (3), 6-2, 6-3 to move into the fourth round.
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Karolina Pliskova, the Czech 10th seed, beat 17th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russian Federation 6-2, 6-4, 11th seed Carla Suarez Navarro moved through with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Russia’s Elena Vesnina (19) and Croatia’s Ana Konjuh won a battle of the unseeded players, beating American Varvara Lepchenko 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. “And what better place to do than here where it all started”.
