U.S. Open: Janik Sinner battles past Tommy Paul to reach quarterfinals
By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis Writer
NEW YORK — Top-seeded Jannik Sinner reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals by shaking off a slow start and coming through in the clutch at the end of tiebreakers that decided the first two sets, then pulling away to get past No. 14 Tommy Paul, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5), 6-1, on Monday night.
Sinner – two weeks removed from being cleared in a doping case stemming from two positive tests in March – moved into a showdown against 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev, the last past winner at Flushing Meadows still in the men’s field.
Sinner, a 23-year-old from Italy, claimed his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January by defeating Medvedev in five sets in the final after dropping the first two. They also met in the Wimbledon quarterfinals in July, and Medvedev won that one.
Against Paul, Sinner was not at his best at the outset, falling behind by a double-break at 4-1 after 20 minutes at Arthur Ashe Stadium, where a loud crowd was backing the American, to no one’s surprise.
As the match went on, plenty of chants of “U-S-A!” or “Let’s go, Tommy! Let’s go!” rang out. There also were several moments when spectators clapped after faults by Sinner – considered poor etiquette in tennis, that drew repeated admonishments from the chair umpire, who pleaded for no noise between first and second serves.
Sinner finished the initial set with 15 unforced errors on the forehand side alone, but he cleaned that up quickly and closed the match with just six the rest of the way.
Everything hinged on the tiebreakers. The first was tied 3-all, before Sinner grabbed the last four points. Paul led 5-4 in the second, but Sinner took the last three points.
That meant Sinner has now won 14 of his past 15 tiebreakers, a stretch that dates to a tournament in Halle, Germany, in June. The lone exception was one he lost against Medvedev at Wimbledon.
Competing in New York a week after word emerged of his doping case – he tested positive twice for a trace amount of an anabolic steroid in March but avoided a suspension because it was ruled unintentional – Sinner dropped the first set he played at the U.S. Open. He’s won the next 12.
Paul was trying to get his third career quarterfinal and first at Flushing Meadows. He also was trying to become the first American to beat a man ranked No. 1 at the U.S. Open since Andre Agassi eliminated Lleyton Hewitt in 2002.
Instead, Paul fell to 0-6 at majors against players ranked in the top 10.
Sinner improved to 32-2 with four titles on hard courts in 2024 and he’s now reached at least the quarterfinals at all four Slams this year.
Earlier Monday, the fifth-seeded Medvedev overwhelmed Nuno Borges, 6-0, 6-1, 6-3, in a match that briefly was interrupted early in the third set – along with every other match going on at the time – because of a fire alarm in the building that houses the electronic line-calling system.
The other quarterfinal on the top half of the men’s bracket will be No. 10 Alex de Minaur vs. No. 25 Jack Draper. De Minaur beat Jordan Thompson, 6-0, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5, in an all-Australian matchup, while Draper became the first British man in the U.S. Open quarterfinals since Andy Murray in 2016 by defeating Tomas Machac, 6-3, 6-1, 6-2.
“I obviously miss Andy. Shoutout to Andy. What an unbelievable career the guy’s had. Just an icon of the game. I miss him in the change rooms. I miss being next to his stinky shoes and all his stinky clothes,” said Draper, who will take on No. 10 Alex de Minaur or Jordan Thompson, two Australians scheduled to play each other Monday. “Andy’s a legend, and if I have half the career he had, then I’ll be a happy man.”
The men’s quarterfinals Tuesday are No. 4 Alexander Zverev vs. No. 12 Taylor Fritz, and No. 9 Grigor Dimitrov vs. No. 20 Frances Tiafoe.
PEGULA BACK IN QUARTERFINALS
Jessica Pegula is back in the quarterfinals after a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Diana Shnaider, her seventh trip to that round at a Grand Slam tournament. Now comes the hard part: Pegula is 0-6 in major quarterfinals over her career – and this next one will come against top-seeded Iga Swiatek.
The sixth-seeded Pegula, an American whose parents own the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, is on quite a run at the moment, having won 13 of her past 14 matches, all on hard courts. That included her second consecutive title in Canada and an appearance in the final at the Cincinnati Open, where she lost to second-ranked Aryna Sabalenka.
“I feel like there’s been more pressure this year, because I did so well coming into this tournament,” said the 30-year-old Pegula, the oldest woman left in the field. “I want to keep working my way and hopefully bringing my best tennis for the later rounds this time.”
Swiatek was tied at 4-all with No. 16 Liudmila Samsonova on Monday night before grabbing seven straight games en route to winning 6-4, 6-1. When Swiatek captured the 2022 U.S. Open for one of her five Grand Slam titles, she eliminated Pegula in the quarterfinals.
Indeed, half of Pegula’s six quarterfinal exits at Slams came against a No. 1 player – Swiatek twice and Ash Barty once.
“I’ll just try to draw from those experiences and kind of how I felt going into the next match, but it’s just so tough,” Pegula said. “I mean, I know you don’t want the cliche answer, but it’s just kind of one match at a time, and every day kind of feels different. It depends on who you are playing, how the conditions are, when you’re playing. There are so many variables day to day.”
Also returning to the quarterfinals was Karolina Muchova, a 6-3, 6-3 winner over No. 5 Jasmine Paolini, the runner-up at the French Open and Wimbledon this season. Muchova next plays No. 22 Beatriz Haddad Maia, who got past 2018 Australian Open champion Caroline Wozniacki, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3, to become the first woman from Brazil in the U.S. Open quarterfinals since Maria Bueno in 1968.
Haddad Maia is a 28-year-old left-hander who was given a 10-month suspension after failing a doping test in 2019. She was a semifinalist at the French Open last year but had not been past the second round at Flushing Meadows until now.
Muchova enjoyed a breakthrough 2023, getting to the final in Paris and the semifinals in New York, before needing surgery on her right wrist in October, sidelining her for 10 months.
“This was my worst and most serious injury, I would say. But, I mean, I love the sport, so in my head, I was like, ‘I will do everything I could to (get) better and try.’ And here I am today,” said Muchova, whose U.S. Open ended a year ago with a loss to eventual champion Coco Gauff. “I’m just a really happy kid now.”
Gauff was seeded No. 3 this year and was eliminated Sunday by No. 13 Emma Navarro.
Everything went Pegula’s way against the 18th-seeded Shnaider, a 20-year-old Russian who played one season of college tennis at NC State and won a silver medal in women’s doubles at the Paris Olympics.
Pegula compiled 22 winners, hit six aces, saved seven of nine break points that she faced and claimed five of Shnaider’s service games.
“My movement has really improved, which has really helped me stay into a lot of these points and these sets and these games and be super consistent,” Pegula said. “I’ve been serving pretty well. Even if it’s not working, I’ve been kind of getting myself out of service games by serving smart or serving well in big moments like today where she was returning really well.”
REIGNING DOUBLES CHAMPS OUSTED
Three-time defending U.S. Open men’s doubles champions Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury were eliminated in the third round by the 13th-seeded American duo of Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow, 7-6 (3), 6-3.
Ram, who is from the U.S., and Salisbury, who is from Britain, had won 20 consecutive matches together at Flushing Meadows. They were seeded third this year.
A year ago, they became the first men to win three U.S. Open doubles titles in a row since Americans Tom Bundy and Maurice McLoughlin from 1912-14.
In the quarterfinals, Lammons and Withrow will face the 11th-seeded pair of Wesley Koolhof and Nikola Mektic.
Koolhof and Mektic were the last team to defeat Ram and Salisbury in New York, doing so in the semifinals in 2020.