Japan’s Naomi Osaka on Monday delivered a statement win at the US Open by thrashing home favorite Coco Gauff in the round-of-16 as Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek charged into the quarter-finals.
The Japanese star powered past third seed Gauff 6-3, 6-2 in a highly anticipated but lopsided fourth-round showdown of former US Open champions.
Osaka broke in the very first game in front of an expectant Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd and was untouchable on serve in a ruthless display against a misfiring Gauff, who hit 33 unforced errors.
Photo: Mike Frey-Imagn Images, USA Today
“This is my favorite court in the world, and it means so much to me to be back today,” said Osaka, who looks primed for a tilt at a fifth Grand Slam.
“This is kind of uncharted territory at this point of my career,” Osaka added. “I’m just enjoying it. I’m having fun.”
The 27-year-old, a two-time US Open champion, is enjoying her deepest run at a major since winning her second Australian Open title in 2021.
It has been a painstaking climb back toward the top of the game for Osaka, who returned to tennis last year following the birth of her daughter in 2023.
“I was in the stands two months after I gave birth watching Coco, and I just really wanted an opportunity to come out here and play,” said Osaka, who also beat a 15-year-old Gauff at the US Open in their first meeting in 2019.
Gauff conceded the mental toll of a challenging first week, and the efforts to remodel her faltering serve had weighed heavily on her.
Osaka plays Czech 11th seed Karolina Muchova today. Muchova beat Ukrainian 27th seed Marta Kostyuk 6-3, 6-7 (0/7), 6-3 and is seeking a third straight semi-final at Flushing Meadows.
Reigning men’s champion Sinner obliterated the unpredictable Alexander Bublik 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 in just 81 minutes to start the night session.
Bublik, the only player to beat Sinner this season aside from Carlos Alcaraz, had not dropped serve all tournament, but was broken eight times by the world No. 1.
“He had a very tough match the last match, today he didn’t serve as well as he usually serves, and I broke him early,” Sinner said. “Overall, I’m very happy.”
Bublik smiled as he embraced Sinner at the net after the defeat, and could be heard telling the Italian: “You’re so good, this is insane.”
Sinner is trying to become the first man to defend the US Open since Roger Federer won the last of his five successive titles in 2008.
He advances to an all-Italian match-up with 10th seed Lorenzo Musetti, who demolished unseeded Spaniard Jaume Munar 6-3, 6-0, 6-1 to reach his first US Open quarter-final.
Swiatek brushed off Russian 13th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3, 6-1 in barely an hour to extend her Grand Slam winning streak to 11 matches as she targets a second US Open crown.
“I felt like in the beginning she played fast, but later on I felt in my bubble, in the zone,” Swiatek said.
The Polish second seed faces the US’ Amanda Anisimova in a repeat of the Wimbledon final, which Swiatek won 6-0, 6-0. Anisimova thumped Brazilian 18th seed Beatriz Haddad 6-0, 6-3.
Former European champions Celtic exited the UEFA Champions League in the qualifiers after a 3-2 penalty shoot-out defeat at Kazakhstan’s Kairat Almaty on Tuesday, following two goalless legs in the playoff tie. Kairat are to compete in the competition proper for the first time, while Norway’s Bodo/Glimt and Cyprus’s Pafos also secured debut appearances after coming through the playoffs. Celtic’s night ended in disappointment as they missed three penalties in the shoot-out, Daizen Maeda failing with the decisive spot-kick. The slugfest of a match went into extra-time with neither side finding the net and few overall chances, echoing the first
Rangers on Wednesday bowed out of the UEFA Champions League playoffs with a humiliating 6-0 defeat at the hands of Club Brugge which piles further pressure on head coach Russell Martin, while SL Benfica secured a place in the competition proper at the expense of Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce. The Glasgow giants traveled to Belgium right up against it after losing 3-1 at home in last week’s first leg, when they conceded three times in the opening 20 minutes. They never looked like turning the tie around as Club Brugge took the lead inside five minutes at the Jan Breydelstadion through Nicolo Tresoldi
Australian Alex de Minaur reached the second week of the US Open for the third year in a row with little fanfare on Saturday and said he intended to keep winning until the tournament organizers were forced to give him better billing. Despite being the eighth seed and a quarter-finalist last year at Flushing Meadows, De Minaur’s third-round match against German Daniel Altmaier was scheduled for Court 17 — the smallest of the four stadium venues in the precinct. “It is a little bit of a headscratcher for me. I’m not gonna lie,” he told reporters after progressing 6-7 (9/7), 6-3, 6-4,
Noah Lyles on Thursday warmed up for the upcoming athletics world championships by chasing down Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo to win the 200m at the Diamond League final. Lyles trailed Tebogo at the start, but gradually erased the deficit over the final 100m and pipped the Botswana sprinter to the line by centimeters. Lyles, the Olympic 100m champion and reigning world champion in both the 100m and 200m, clocked 19.74 seconds in a slight headwind. Tebogo was 0.02 seconds behind. It was Lyles’ sixth Diamond League title, a record for track athletes. “Six, that’s a big number,” Lyles said. “Shoot, that’s another record on
RSS