Well, it’s official: the US Open will not have a back-to-back champion this year.
A day after Novak Djokovic exited, Naomi Osaka followed him out, and under much the same circumstances.
Being bested by an impressive Belinda Bencic and her own body, the Japanese simply wasn’t able to back-up her storming run to a maiden grand slam title here in 2018. That said, even more than Djokovic, you can be certain she’s not going anywhere anytime soon, but in the meantime, the 2019 US Open marches on – right to the quarterfinals.
Read on for a look at all four quarterfinal matchups on Tuesday in NYC:
All matches on Arthur Ashe Stadium
Day Session – 12:00pm start
Elina Svitolina (UKR) [5] v Johanna Konta (GBR) [16]
After years of relatively futility at the grand slam level, Elina Svitolina is now just one match away from back-to-back semi-final appearances, with only Jo Konta standing in her way. On paper about a good a matchup as Svitolina could’ve hoped for at this stage of the tournament, the Ukrainian has taken all four of her previous meetings with the Brit, and particularly after the way she dismissed Madison Keys in the previous round, looks good to make it five-for-five here. If Konta is to reverse the trend, she’s going to have to serve lights-out and keep rallies from stagnating with frequent changes of direction, and while that’s certainly doable for Konta, whether she can keep it up for three sets against such a tenacious opponent remains to be seen.
Stan Wawrinka (SUI) [23] v Daniil Medvedev (RUS) [5]
Considering New York has long been the home of many comic-book heroes, in a way it’s only fitting “The Stanimal” faces off against tennis’ budding supervillain Daniil Medvedev at the US Open. A hard match to predict, Medvedev won their only previous meeting – a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 affair at Wimbledon 2017 – but considering it came at the start of Wawrinka’s struggles with injury, it might not be a fair reflection of the man who just knocked-off Novak Djokovic. Indeed, with the way Stan’s playing right now, this is set to be an absolutely titanic clash of baseline hitting likely to come down to a handful of points.
Night Session – 7:00pm start
Serena Williams (USA) [8] v Qiang Wang (CHN) [18]
For the second slam in a row, Ash Barty and Serena Williams were on track to play in the quarterfinals, and for the second slam in a row along came an upstart to spoil the party. The question now is, can Qiang Wang fare any better than Alison Riske did at Wimbledon? Certainly she’s got her work cut out for her, with Serena having a clear-cut home-court advantage, to say nothing of the disparity in power. That said, Wang might be able to take a page out of Riske’s book and look to take time away from her opponent by hitting on the rise and with frequent changes of direction, but assuming the ankle isn’t a bother, the most likely outcome is that Serena runs through her.
Roger Federer (SUI) [3] v Grigor Dimitrov (BUL)
His first major quarterfinal since AO 2018, it’s been a long trek through the wilderness for Grigor Dimitrov to get back to this point, so naturally his reward is a date with Roger Federer. With the Swiss leading the head-to-head 7-0, this is simply a nightmare matchup for Dimitrov, and while at 28 you can’t really still call him “Baby Fed”, the harsh truth is he just does everything Federer does, but worse — call him “teenage Fed”, if you will. In any case, the only real hope for Dimitrov is if Federer has an off day, but considering the demolition job he just pulled on David Goffin, that seems unlikely.
