Wawrinka, the 2014 Australian Open victor and 2015 French Open champion, will next meet sixth seed Kei Nishikori of Japan, the 2014 Flushing Meadows runner-up, who upset world number two Andy Murray in five sets in their quarter-final.
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When Murray double faulted (his third in the match) to give Nishikori another break point in the 11th game of the fifth, Nishikori pounced a final time with a drop shot that Murray somehow tracked own, only to helplessly watch Nishikori’s volley victor.
But the elements, an accident, the Scot’s own temperament and, most of all, the fearless, tireless Nishikori conspired to derail him in a match too far for the British No 1.
Nishikori, however, held firm, punishing Murray for his earlier distraction to advance to his first grand slam semi-final since finishing a runner-up here two years ago. “That helped me a lot to regroup the tactics”, he said.
The 2012 US Open victor, and reigning Wimbledon and Olympic champion, slumped to a 1-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, 7-5 loss to the Japanese sixth seed in a thrilling four-hour clash yesterday.
Murray will remember it for many ups and downs, not least the let and replayed point called against him in the fourth set – the result of an electrical malfunction in the court’s sound system that set off a loud, distracting noise – which seriously unsettled him and contributed significantly to a dramatic loss of focus and, ultimately, the match.
Murray lost his composure and the next five games as Nishikori levelled at two sets all.
Nishikori will face the victor of Wednesday night’s quarterfinal between 2009 champion Juan Martin del Potro and No. 3 seed Stan Wawrinka. “There’s just a few things I could do differently next time”.
“I was surprised and I was still waiting even in the first set; even in the second set I was still waiting – (thinking) some complications going to come”, Pliskova said. “Obviously, I would love to have won, but I have not let anyone down”.
And now he has a chance to go back to the finals, where he lost to Djokovic in 2014. It’s not really for me to say.
Murray hit 46 unforced errors, not disastrous but, allied to a serve that never quite hit the heights of previous matches here, giving Nishikori too much latitude to build his game.
“Definitely my concentration went off, ” Nishikori said of the gong sound.
His win came just three weeks after losing to Murray in the Olympic semi-finals. But I’ve also won some over the last few months I should have lost. Konjuh, also a big server, had more aces in the match, in fact (4-3).
Tenth-seeded Pliskova, who survived a match point in her fourth-round victory over sixth-seeded Venus Williams. Yet Nishikori was not to be denied, as he broke his opponent for a fifth time in eight service games. Murray led by a break at 3-2, but was immediately pegged back to 3-3 with some defiant returning from the number six seed.
Having started with a dominant 6-1 victory, Murray’s match was flipped on its head when Nishikori claimed the fourth by the same scoreline as part of a seven-game winning run.
But maybe it wasn’t all the doing of vengeful bug ghosts: Nishikori played rangy, rubbery, (and frankly, Murray-esque) defense, digging in to chip back apparent winners, lunging for stab volleys at the net.
“It was really hard match”, Nishikori said.
Whatever coach Michael Chang told his player during the stoppage, it worked, as a more aggressive Nishikori came out and broke to take the second set.
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Murray put a fearless face on the defeat that terminated his 2016 grand-slam season. “I think this is a great opportunity for me and I’m so happy to go to the semifinals”.
