Sevastova will face Caroline Wozniacki in the quarter-finals after she beat eighth seed Madison Keys in straight sets.
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The British No 1 was unable to find her rhythm and range in hard conditions as sunshine cast a shadow across the Arthur Ashe court that caused both players a host of problems.
Sevastova, the 26-year-old world No 48, knocked out French Open champion and third seed Garbine Muguruza in the second round and she built on that victory on Arthur Ashe Stadium in a last 16 tie which featured 12 breaks of serve. “I have played a lot of tennis, and especially in this space of time”. “It’s always tough to finish the match, but I think I’m handling it better now”. “Everything started for me here in 2011, reaching the semifinal, and this time I feel like a new tennis player, enjoying every single moment and taking every challenge to play my game”.
She lost in the second round at New Haven and in qualifying in Cincinnati.
After a messy opener, the early signs were that the second set would not be high quality either, with Sevastova pulling out a scrappy hold to start with; iIt was Sevastova who was striking the ball better, hitting a forehand victor to go 15-40 up on Konta’s serve.
“I used what I had today and unfortunately it just wasn’t good enough to get me through”.
“I didn’t play the tennis level that I maybe would have liked to have played, but I competed the best I could”.
Latvian tennis player Anastasija Sevastova wore a Yankees cap to her news conference after she reached her first major quarterfinal. Remember just this time a year ago she had played her way through qualifying before losing to Petra Kvitova at the same stage.
“I’m really happy with how I was able to come back from 3-0 down”.
It seemed that Konta, who had taken just 52 minutes to see off Belinda Bencic, was finding it extremely tricky to cope with Sevastova’s game, though, after three unforced errors, the Brit held from 0-40 down to avoid the double break, and then cut down the number of errors as she began to effectively dictate play and break back. She said: “I felt I did the best I could today”.
“I don’t judge myself purely on results, that would be an up and down sort of career”.
Roberta Vinci fought back in the opening set against upstart Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko, edging out the opening set in a tiebreaker and delivering a near-flawless second set to advance to the final eight with a 7-6 (5), 6-2 win over Tsurenko. I still can not believe it.
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Vinci, who is seeded seventh in the U.S. Open, cruised to a second set win.
