Caroline Wozniacki, of Denmark, celebrates after winning her match against Madison Keys, of the United States, during the fourth round of the U.S. Open tennis tournament, Sunday, Sept. 4, 2016, in NY.
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Lucas Pouille of France (left) shakes hands with Rafael Nadal of Spain after their US Open Men’s Singles match at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in NY.
Monfils has not lost a set yet at Flushing Meadows as the tenth seed eased to a 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 win over Pouille on Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Juan Martin del Potro became the lowest ranked man since 1991 to reach the US Open quarter-finals when opponent Dominic Thiem retired from their last-16 tie through injury on Monday. “He is better than me”, said Monfils, before suggesting that a breakthrough was possible on any given day.
“It’s a court I love”, he told the crowd after finishing off Pouille.
“I put myself in a position again to be one match away from the finals”.
In the serving segment, Monfils was clearly in front, with 13 aces and just 2 doubles faults, while Pouille in some way invalidated his 5 aces with 6 double faults.
In arguably the match of the tournament so far, Pouille squandered three match points before finally sealing a 6-1 2-6 6-4 3-6 7-6 win over the two-time champion.
Essentially, Monfils plays tennis and has a lot of fun doing it.
“I fight until the end”, Nadal said after his five-set loss to Lucas Pouille. “And the lob obviously is the best shot”.
Pouille started to make more and more errors, unable to penetrate his rival, and he faced 5 break points in set number 2, losing serve twice in 3rd and 9th games.
He will next take on World No. 1 and the tournament’s top seed, Serb Novak Djokovic, who Sunday night easily won against British up-and-comer Kyle Edmund 6-2, 6-1, 6-4. As he rose with eyes wide open – and tongue still wagging – the last man from France to win any Grand Slam singles title, 1983 French Open champion Yannick Noah, whose son Joakim recently joined the New York Knicks, spread around high-fives in the stands. Djokovic will now face France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.
The two-time champion was unable to capitalise on a 1-0 lead in the fifth set against the record third Frenchman to reach the last eight in NY – a first in the Open tennis era. “And then at 6-all, it was not the same”.
As she walked to the sideline, Vinci looked at the line judge who made the call and smiled sarcastically, giving him a thumb’s up and applauding with her racket.
He didn’t even warm up on the court, because it would have required coming to the grounds hours before his match. Then he staved off a trio of match points.
This is the first time since 1927 that three French players will be in the quarterfinals at the US Open.
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Kerber, who has a chance to overtake Williams at No. 1 in the WTA rankings after the tournament, moved into her third Grand Slam semifinal of the year. He was eliminated in the first round of the Australian Open this past year, and a wrist injury forced him to drop out of the French Open before the third round and forgo Wimbledon altogether.
