No Slow Start for Roger Federer or Serena Williams as Both Easily Advance to US Open Round of 16
(August 30, 2019) FLUSHING MEADOWS, NY – No slow start for Roger Federer or Serena Williams on Friday. The five-time US Open champion beat Great Britain’s Dan Evans in 80 minutes 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 to reach the fourth round of the US Open.
The 20-time major champion seeded third started his first two matches of the tournament dropping the opening sets.
“It is what it is,” the Swiss Federer said about the previous slow starts. “At the end of the day, I think what matters the most for me is that I am in the third round, after all, after those two sort of slow starts. Give myself another opportunity to do better, and I did.
“You almost tend to forget what happened and you move forward. You’re, like, I actually can go through, you know, three sets in a row playing really good tennis. You know, I showed that also in the last couple of matches.
“Today was good. You know, different conditions. I was able to adjust and take care of business. So it was good.”
“He was too good,” noted Evans. “Obviously I didn’t play my best today, but he got on top of me early and it was difficult.
“I mean, I guess he has every shot, so it’s not ideal to have an opponent that has every shot.”
Serena Williams rolled off seven straight games from 2-3 in the first set to take a 6-3, 3-0 lead over Karolina Muchova, she won the match 6-3, 6-2.
Williams will play 22nd seed Petra Martic in the round of 16. This is the six-time champion’s 19th US Open appearance.
The eighth seed was flooded with questions about all of the young women American women players on the way up.
“Well, I can’t be presumptuous and say that’s because of me,” Williams said. “I think it’s because of these young women and their parents and coaches want them to do something amazing. I think tennis is a great sport for females and it’s a great way to showcase your personality, be yourself, make a great living and still do something that you absolutely love.”
“I think she’s just incredibly talented,” Williams said about CoCo Gauff. “I think anyone that’s 15 playing like that, people are going to be drawn to them. I think that’s pretty awesome.”
“I think she’s really pretty cool. I love her excitement on the court. I don’t know what everyone else thinks. I can only tell you what I think. I’m a big fan of hers. I have said that since day one. I love her parents. I think she has a good family, and I think it starts there. It makes for a great athlete and a great person.”
Former No. 1 and former US Open finalist, Karolina Pliskova passed a challenge from Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 to make the second week of a major.
“I think I was playing quite good in the first set,” the Czech Pliskova said. “Still up 2-0 in the second. Just was not able to somehow win any of my serves quite easily in the second set. Just took me some energy, of course.
“You know, just got in trouble maybe more because of me than her. Of course her game is, once you’re not feeling great and her game is not super nice to play because she plays kind of everything, I don’t even know if she knows what she’s playing, and yeah, then was quite difficult.
“Was still up 4-1, so I just thought, two breaks, it’s a lot, so I believe I can hold the serve and serve it out. I think the serve in the end was better, saved me some breakpoints and I was just able to hit a lot of first serves, which was important.
“In the end, good. It was big fight. Not for sure the best feeling but I won, which is good.”
Alex de Minaur reached to reach the last 16 of a major for the first time in his career when he defeated No. 7 seed Kei Nishikori. It’s the 20-year-old Australian’s first Top Ten win of his career.
“It was amazing,” said the 20-year-old ranked 38th in the world. “I have been in this situation before, and this is where I want to be. This is where I feel like my game’s at. I want to be pushing these guys, I want to be pushing second weeks of Grand Slams and putting myself out there. So very happy.”
“I’ve got my fourth-round match, which is the winner between Dimitrov and Majchrzak, so everything goes into that match. Nothing changes. I will do all the same things. I’ll take it as a big opportunity, as I did for this match. This is where I want to be, so I’ll go out there and leave 100%.”
Before the Friday night session there were some concerns about Novak Djokovic‘s shoulder, but the world No. 1 and defending champion put the worrying to rest with a 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 victory over Denis Kudla of the United States. “It’s almost pain-free,” Djokovic said of his left shoulder. Has a little bit of pain, but I’m really pleased with the way it went.”
“I’m very glad with the way it went,” said the man from Serbia. “I am able to play. That for me is a huge blessing today because it was probably the complete opposite two days ago. I did not practice yesterday, that’s true. I did a lot of things in the last few days to be able to play.”
Djokovic had a verbal confrontation with a man during his practice session before the match, Djokovic would not go into specifics but said: “We’ll keep it between us. But he definitely helped me. He doesn’t even know, but he did help me.”
While Djokovic was cruising on Ashe, over in Louis Armstrong Stadium, there was drama with fifth seed Daniil Medvedev and the crowd. The Russian grabbed a towel from a ball person and threw his racquet towards the chair umpire and was seen on the video screen giving the finger to the crowd. Te crowd became anti-Medvedev and began cheering for his opponent Feliciano Lopez.
Medved won the match and chastized the crowd.
Medvedev taunts New York crowd who boo him in response after he serves out 76(1) 46 76(7) 64 win over Lopez. Entertaining match, but Medvedev not winning fans as he reaches R4. #USOpen
— Erik Gudris (@ATNtennis) August 31, 2019
Daniil Medvedev??: “Before match I was thinking that I might not running well in rallies. But the crowd gave an extra energy. After it I knew I will win it. Of course I’m not satisfied with my attitude. But now all who was cheering against me will go to bed knowing that I’ve won”
— Maxim Yanchevsky (@mak_astr) August 31, 2019
Medvedev’s postmatch interview was a trolling masterpiece #USOpen pic.twitter.com/4D2pDdtPU2
— Paid man gets bored (@cjzero) August 31, 2019
Madison Keys, seeded 10th opened the night session in Arthur Ashe Stadium with a 6-3, 7-5 win over countrywoman Sofia Kenin. Towards the middle of the second set, Keys needed to have her blood pressure checked as well as her pulse. The 2017 US Open finalist said that she wasn’t feeling 100 percent.
“It was super weird. Just kind of in the middle of the first set, all of a sudden started feeling not perfect. The end of the first wasn’t feeling amazing.”
She’ll take on No. 5 seed Elina Svitolina in the fourth round, who beat No. 32 Dayana Yastremska 6-2, 6-0.
