India’s Rohan Bopanna and his Australian partner Matthew Ebden advanced to the men’s doubles quarterfinals at the US Open with a hard-fought three-set win over Julian Cash and Henry Patten. The sixth seeded Indo-Australian pair won 6-4, 6-7(5), 7-6(10-6) against the British duo of Cash and Patten after toiling hard for two hours 22 minutes in the third round at the Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Bopanna and Ebden, who had reached the Wimbledon semifinals earlier this year, hit 13 aces and won 81 per cent of their first-serve points. They will next face the winners of the third round match between top seeds Wesley Koolhof of Netherlands and United Kingdom’s Neal Skupski and the local duo of Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow. The 43-year-old remains the only Indian in the fray in the men’s doubles event after Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni made first round exits. Bopanna, however, crashed out of the mixed doubles event. Partnering Indonesian Aldila Sutjiadi, Bopanna went down 2-6 5-7 to the American duo of Ben Shelton and Taylor Townsend in the second round.
Novak Djokovic rolled into his 13th US Open quarter-final on Sunday after Coco Gauff ended Caroline Wozniacki’s fairytale Grand Slam comeback to line up a potential blockbuster with defending champion Iga Swiatek. Three-time US Open winner Djokovic cruised past 105th-ranked Croatian qualifier Borna Gojo 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 to book a showdown with American No.1 Taylor Fritz in the last eight. After recovering from two sets down in the previous round, Djokovic dictated from the outset against 25-year-old outsider Gojo who had won just one Grand Slam match prior to this week. Djokovic broke twice in the first set, the 23-time Grand Slam winner shaking off an early wobble in the second and procuring another break in the third to polish off Gojo without the drama of his preceding five-set victory over Laslo Djere.
Top-seed Iga Swiatek crashed out of US Open, suffering a 6-3, 3-6, 1-6 defeat to world no. 21 Jelena Ostapenko in Women’s Singles Round of 16. Swiatek, who was also the defending champion in the competition, started off well against Ostapenko, winning the first set 6-3 but was outdone by her opponent in the following two sets. Swiatek might have been presumed the favorite given her dominance of the WTA Tour over the last couple of years but on-field it’s Ostapenko who has had an edge over the Pole. In fact, before this meeting, Ostapenko had won all three of the pair’s previous showdowns. Swiatek went into Round 4 encounter against Ostapenko having won just one set in three meetings against the big-hitting Latvian. Basing her game on audacious hitting that can run hot and cold, Ostapenko overpowered the Pole the same way she did in earlier meetings. But, all of her previous wins had come before Swiatek had risen to No.1 last year. However, ranking had little impact on Ostapenko’s mind as she once again continued her dominance over the Polish star.
