14-time major champion Rafael Nadal has now failed to go past the fourth round in his last five grand slams, while Pouille advances to meet fellow Frenchman Gael Monfils in the quarter-finals.
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Kim Clijsters won her first US Open in 2005 but retired in 2007, eventually starting a family with husband Brian Lynch. Sevastova set up her third match point with a splendid forehand cross-court pass victor and converted it when Konta shanked a forehand.
After a draining 67-minute opening set, Tsurenko had little left in the tank for the second and Vinci stamped her authority on the match quickly by going up a break and cruising to an easy win to clinch a spot in the last eight for the third time in four years.
He dropped on his back, his tongue sticking out. “I knew Madison wouldn’t give much up and that she’d go for the big shots, so I tried to keep it on her backhand side”. “Mentally I’m spent. Totally spent”.
Third seed Stan Wawrinka saved a match point to defeat Britain’s Dan Evans 4-6, 6-3, 6-7 (6/8), 7-6 (10/8), 6-2 and reach the US Open fourth round on Saturday. However, it was Sevastova, with her craft, who was able to pull out some strong tennis at most the decisive moments, and after a few wobbles (which include missing two match points), the Latvian managed to secure another upset, just days after knocking out Garbine Muguruza.
“There were things I could do better. So if I look at it like that, I do think I did the best that I could today”.
If Konta seemed to be fighting a physical battle, then Sevastova’s challenges were largely mental. And it also helped that “I saw that there is life without tennis”. As Latvian Sevastova ran away to a 3-0 lead and held three break points to make that 4-0, Konta had won only five points in the match. In 2015, she made the French Open semi-finals.
As both women were returning better than serving, there were plenty of breaks – 12 in 22 games – and Sevastova served for both sets without getting the job done either time.
“But at some point I said, OK, I will try tennis again”. It seemed that the Latvian could finally breakthrough when she hit a victor to start, and cross court forehand passing shot to set up a third match point proved to be crucial, with Sevastova finally progressing after the Brit made a final forehand error.
The 10th-seeded Frenchman swept Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 on Sunday to improve to 18-2 in matches he’s played since a first-round loss at Wimbledon.
Sevastova, who’s ranked 48th, was such an unknown coming into the U.S. Open that initially her picture wasn’t included in the official tournament app.
Caroline Wozniacki, derailed this year by an ankle injury which sent her career into a tailspin, and Anastasija Sevastova, who quit the sport three years ago, set up a US Open quarter-final duel on Sunday (Sep 4).
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Wozniacki is a two-time runner-up at Flushing Meadows, but she is unseeded and ranked only 74th after a season filled with injuries and poor results.
