LAST UPDATE | 4 Sep 2023
DEFENDING CHAMPION IGA Swiatek crashed out of the US Open on Sunday after defeat by Jelena Ostapenko and will lose her number one ranking, while Novak Djokovic marched into the quarter-finals.
Swiatek grabbed the opening set against Ostapenko but the unpredictable Latvian stormed back to win 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 and secure her fourth victory in as many meetings with the Polish star.
The mercurial Ostapenko, who had never made it to the last 16 in New York before this week, goes on to face title contender and home favourite Coco Gauff in the last eight after blasting Swiatek out of the tournament.
“She plays well against me, she’s always done that,” said Swiatek.
“I’m just surprised that my level changed so drastically. I don’t really know what happened with my game, I felt no control suddenly.”
Undeterred by falling behind, Ostapenko’s typically fearless and aggressive approach rendered Swiatek helpless and ensures there will be a new world number one after the US Open.
Swiatek’s 75-week reign will come to an end, with rival Aryna Sabalenka set to take over top spot.
“I always expect a tough battle against Iga, she’s such a great player and won many Slams and is so consistent,” said Ostapenko, the 20th seed and 2017 French Open champion.
“I knew I had to be aggressive and play my game because that’s what she doesn’t like.
“I was just thinking that I have to play until the very last point, until we shake hands. I felt like I was playing better and didn’t give her many chances.”
Gauff ended Caroline Wozniacki’s fairytale Grand Slam comeback earlier Sunday as the sixth seed saw off the former world number one 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.
The 19-year-old registered her 15th win in 16 matches, a run including titles in Washington and Cincinnati last month.
Gauff sparked into life after dropping the opening two games to pocket the opening set, but Wozniacki — playing her first Grand Slam in over three years — wound back the clock to level the match.
Two-time US Open runner-up Wozniacki, 33, broke to start the deciding set, triggering a ferocious response from Gauff who swept the final six games to close out a gutsy victory.
Wozniacki, who made her tour debut when Gauff was only one, retired after the 2020 Australian Open to start a family, giving birth to two children.
She was trying to emulate Kim Clijsters, who beat the Dane in the 2009 US Open final on her own return to Grand Slam tennis from maternity leave.
- Djokovic sails as Americans progress -
Djokovic swept into his 13th US Open quarter-final, cruising past 105th-ranked Croatian qualifier Borna Gojo 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 to advance to a showdown with American No.1 Taylor Fritz.
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.
The 36-year-old Serbian star will on Tuesday look to continue his dominance of Fritz, a player he’s beaten in all seven past meetings including a one-sided affair in Cincinnati last month.
“He’s been playing some terrific tennis particularly on home soil here in the States,” Djokovic said of Fritz, the only man yet to drop a set so far.
“Obviously the matches are going to get tougher from here onwards and I’m ready. It’s going to be great.”
Fritz became the third American man to reach the quarter-finals Sunday after a straight-sets win over Swiss qualifier Dominic Stricker.
The ninth seed knocked out world number 128 Stricker 7-6 (7/2), 6-4, 6-4 to match his mother Kathy May’s run to the 1978 US Open quarter-finals.
He joins compatriots Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton in the next round. It is the first time the US has had three men’s quarter-finalists in New York since 2005.
Tiafoe, seeded 10th, advanced to an all-American quarter-final against 47th-ranked Shelton after defeating Australia’s Rinky Hijikata 6-4, 6-1, 6-4.
The 25-year-old Tiafoe reached the semi-finals of the US Open last year where he lost in five sets to eventual champion Carlos Alcaraz.
Meanwhile Shelton, 20, took down 14th-seeded compatriot Tommy Paul in four sets to reach his second Grand Slam quarter-final of the year.
He avenged his loss to Paul in the last eight of the Australian Open, winning 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 to become the youngest American man to reach the US Open quarters since Andy Roddick in 2002.
Shelbourne ,Cork, Rovers, Drogheda, and Bray and Limerick this season all have had same problems in recent year’s….. The fai need to sort out their problem child once and for all
@Tony O Connor: Fai can’t be trusted to sort it out. Fans took control of Cork City and slowly but surely turned the club around,(From going to Derry with just 12 players, to the bus refusing to take them to Dublin for a game because bus company had’nt been paid).A few short years later look where they are now, League Champions and fai cup holders, playing in Champions League! Regular crowds between 4,000 and 6,000, (more for european games). What a turn around because of the fans taking control of their club and running it the way it should be run, not because of fai involvement.
@running man: great point about the fans controlling the club. Munich is 50% controlled by fan and it’s a massive success. Different situation I know but fans don’t want to make money and leave they want to make a good squad that competes for silverware every season
@Arry Ryan: all bundesliga clubs are majority owned by club supporter groups with the exception of one or two clubs who have found a way around the 50+1 “football clubs will not be allowed to play in the Bundesliga if commercial investors have more than a 49 percent stake”
Maybe the league should return to amateur status? There are only a few spectators at any game & there are only tiny TV or advertising revenues. The players are not generating enough income to pay their wages.
@Locojoe: You obviously haven’t been at a City match in Turners Cross.
@Locojoe: Its not up to the players to generate revenue, all they can do is go out and try to win. Its the owners of financial officer at bigger clubs who deal with finances.
@Locojoe: so your basically saying that clubs in league 2/1 over in England should go amateur right? Majority of clubs get small crowds over their, and then you look at cork averaging 5000, sham/dundalk averaging over 3000 and Sligo/pats averaging up and over 2000 people per game.
Yet your here laying into the LOI saying it should go “amateur” when the crowds have been improving year on year.
Limerick were getting 2 to 3 thousand at games last year , and then manager sacked , another left them in the lurch and joined a team back home , and said he was brought in to do a hatchet job , and was leaving the club in a good position , . Pat o Sullivan , who was never shy in speaking out , has for this past while stayed silent. The fai need to send in accountants / auditors to check their books , for a start .
With the battle between GAA and soccer for supporters and players along with our relatively small population very few clubs in this country will ever be on a stable footing. The advertising for games is non existant. The marketing from the club’s and FAI is appalling.
I have been an ireland season ticket holder for years and never once gotten an email about my nearest club which would be tallaght to ask about interest in going to club games. The game in Ireland is dead right now and without a complete new set of standards for clubs, financial and marketing it has no hope of surviving
@ChuckE: “I have been an ireland season ticket holder for years and never once gotten an email about my nearest club which would be tallaght to ask about interest in going to club games.”
You just explained perfectly why so many LoI fans wont go to Ireland games, why fund a sporting organisation when said organisation does literally nothing to improve its local league. Even an email which can be setup to be auto sent and they don’t even do that.
FAI are a joke. Sligo Rovers have to go 77 days without a home league fixture due to FAI planning. Imagine shutting a business for 77 days and expecting it to survive.
Anybody know what a typical wage at a club like Limerick might be?
@Jumperoo: some junior soccer players are getting more than some at limerick , another fai problem to solve? Without burying their heads in the sand?
You still need big financial backers and no amount of wind blowing up my ass is going to tell me that cork dont have big financial backers. No club on FANS ALONE funding it would survive in the LOI. Rumours of two groups looking for 100% ownership when the season finishes. As I said rumours.
@Trevor Beacom: Bohemians have been members-owned throughout their 128-year existence…
@Trevor Beacom: Cork City is 100% owned by the fans with no outside financial backing. FACT.