By HOWARD FENDRICH AP Tennis Writer
NEW YORK — Aryna Sabalenka is going to be the No. 1 player in the WTA rankings next week, replacing Iga Swiatek there. That much is certain. The way Sabalenka is playing at the moment, she might very well supplant Swiatek as the U.S. Open champion, too.
In Sabalenka’s first match since being assured of rising to the top of women’s tennis, she showed off the power-based game that allows her to dominate so many opponents, overwhelming No. 13 seed Daria Kasatkina, 6-1, 6-3, on Monday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium to advance to her fifth consecutive major quarterfinal.
“All this year, I’ve been pushing myself so hard to reach this goal,” Sabalenka said about getting to No. 1. “It really means a lot for me. It means a lot for my family. It’s crazy. It’s unbelievable.”
After the top-seeded Swiatek lost in the fourth round on Sunday night, third-seeded Jessica Pegula and fifth-seeded Ons Jabeur – who was the runner-up in New York a year ago – both were defeated Monday. No. 4 Elena Rybakina bowed out last week.
That all left Sabalenka as the only one of the top five women remaining in the bracket.
She will play No. 23 Zheng Qinwen on Wednesday for a spot in the semifinals. The other quarterfinal on the bottom half of the draw will be ninth-seeded Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova against No. 17 Madison Keys, the U.S. Open runner-up in 2017.
Sabalenka said she thought she would be distracted against Kasatkina by the rankings news. Sure didn’t seem to be one bit.
Sabalenka, who won the Australian Open in January, frequently hits shots with such force, and such little subtlety, that her amount of control can vary. But when she’s on, she’s tough to counter, and Sabalenka was on-target against Kasatkina, winding up with a 31-7 edge in total winners in a match that lasted just 75 minutes.
“I’m super happy with the performance today,” Sabalenka said. “I’m super happy I was able to put her under pressure.”
After her big breakthrough at Melbourne Park, Sabalenka got to the semifinals at the French Open and Wimbledon, making her 21-2 in Grand Slam matches this season.
Now she’ll attempt to get back to the semifinals in New York, where she lost at that stage two years ago to Leylah Fernandez and last year to Swiatek.
“I think she’s been knocking on the door for quite a while,” Pegula said. “It’s nice to see that change and see her get rewarded for how well she’s been playing, her consistency, especially in the Slams.”
Keys stunned Pegula, 6-1, 6-3, in an all-American clash at Ashe, reaching the quarterfinals for the first time since 2018.
Keys crashed out of the first round at Cincinnati last month but appeared right at home on the New York hard courts, where she was runner-up in 2017, as she overwhelmed her opponent with 21 winners.
Pegula beat Keys in their only previous meeting last year and was considered one of the Americans’ brightest hopes after winning the Montreal title last month.
However, on Monday she lacked her usual firepower and finesse.
“I’ve had so many amazing moments in New York,” said Keys, who is playing in her 12th U.S. Open main draw.
“Being able to at any moment come back from any difficult positions I’ve been in matches has been amazing.”
Keys broke her opponent’s serve with a backhand winner in the second game of the first set and broke Pegula again on the fourth try in game six.
Pegula was clearly off her game and threw her racquet down in frustration as she helped Keys to the break with a double fault and a backhand error in the fifth game of the second set.
Pegula broke back immediately in the sixth game but Keys kept her cool, retaking the lead as she broke her opponent’s serve in the seventh game.
Keys, who counts Pegula as a close friend, pumped her fist in a subdued celebration as highest-seeded American dropped her serve again when she sent a forehand shot into the net on match point.
“It’s always tough having to play a friend … when we get on the court it’s all business,” Keys said in a courtside interview.
The quarterfinals on the top half of the women’s bracket will be played Tuesday: sixth-seeded Coco Gauff vs. 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, and No. 10 Karolina Muchova vs. No. 30 Sorana Cirstea.
Zheng, a 20-year-old from China, was responsible for eliminating Jabeur, who has been sick, by the score of 6-2, 6-3 to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal for the first time. Vondrousova beat unseeded American Peyton Stearns, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-2.
“I feel this is, like, an important win for me,” Zheng said. “I always believe that I’m able to beat everyone if I play the right tennis.”
In men’s matches on Monday, defending champion Carlos Alcaraz won in straight sets and will next meet No. 12 Alexander Zverev, who outlasted sixth-seeded Jannik Sinner, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, in a night match that lasted 4 hours, 41 minutes and ended early Tuesday morning (ET).
A fan was ejected in the fourth set after Zverev complained to the chair umpire that the man used language from Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. Zverev said after the match the spectator was singing Hitler’s anthem.
“I love when fans are loud, I love when fans are emotional,” Zverev said. “But I think me being German and not really proud of that history, it’s not really a great thing to do and I think him sitting in one of the front rows, I think a lot of people heard it. So if I just don’t react, I think it’s bad from my side.”
The 2021 champion, third-seeded Daniil Medvedev, and No. 8 Andrey Rublev will face off in an all-Russian quarterfinal. Rublev slugged his way past Britain’s Jack Draper, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, in the afternoon to reach his ninth Grand Slam quarterfinal, and Medvedev got past No. 13 Alex de Minaur, 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 at night.
The runner-up in 2019 before denying Novak Djokovic a calendar-year grand slam sweep two years ago, Medvedev was in trouble early against de Minaur, whose aggressive play had the former world No. 1 rattled and made a repeat of his win over Medvedev in Toronto last month seem a distinct possibility.
Playing aggressive tennis, de Minaur won nine of nine points rushing the net and broke Medvedev in the fifth and seventh games to steam through the opening set in 32 minutes.
But a spectacular tweener from Medvedev during a 34-shot winning rally sparked the Russian into action midway through the second set.
De Minaur had to fight off five break points to hold for 2-2 but couldn’t recover from 15-40 down serving at 4-5 as Medvedev levelled the match at a set apiece.
The Russian shifted up a gear in the fourth, overpowering de Minaur from the back with two more breaks to take a two-sets-to-one lead.
It was all but over when de Minaur dropped serve twice more in the fourth set as Medvedev surged to 5-1 before closing out the contest after two hours and 40 minutes.
Alcaraz is in the quarterfinals for the third time in as many appearances at Flushing Meadows.
Seeking to defend his title after winning Wimbledon in July said afterward that he now prefers hard courts over any other surface and also likes playing under the Arthur Ashe Stadium roof. He enjoyed both against the 61st-ranked Arnaldi, an Italian who proved little match for Alcaraz’s power, which produced 31 winners.
By advancing to the round of eight, the 20-year-old Spaniard became the youngest player to reach three U.S. Open quarterfinals in the Open era that dates to 1968 and the only player other than Andre Agassi to do so before turning 21.
AMERICAN MEN RESURGENT
Novak Djokovic gets why male tennis players from the United States are expected to win Grand Slam titles today, the way they did when Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors were around. And he gets – that’s not to say he agrees with – why anything less is not really acceptable to the country’s fans.
“Of course, when you are used to champions and No. 1s in the world, Grand Slam winners, anything except that is not a success, right?” Djokovic said. “It’s a very high standard (and) criteria for these guys to meet, that you had players that were Top 10, like John Isner, after Andy Roddick. If (Isner) didn’t win a Slam, people think it’s kind of a failed career, which is something I don’t agree with. But again I understand, because America is such a big country in tennis.”
Djokovic, a 36-year-old from Serbia with 23 Grand Slam titles, is going to need to beat two men from the host country at the U.S. Open if he is to play in what would be his 10th final at Flushing Meadows next Sunday. That’s because he’ll face ninth-seeded Taylor Fritz in the quarterfinals on Tuesday, while No. 10 Frances Tiafoe meets unseeded Ben Shelton in the other matchup on the bottom half of the bracket.
Fritz, Tiafoe and Shelton give the United States three American men in the final eight at the U.S. Open since 2005, when Andy Roddick, James Blake and Robby Ginepri did it.
Roddick’s title at the 2003 U.S. Open was the last major singles championship for an American man.
While Fritz was in the locker room Sunday, waiting to take the court for his fourth-round match, he kept tabs on TV while Tiafoe – a semifinalist in New York a year ago – and Shelton were picking up their victories.
“It motivated me more,” Fritz said, “because I didn’t want to be the one to not make it.”
Fritz is a 25-year-old from San Diego, Tiafoe is a 25-year-old from Maryland and Shelton is a 20-year-old who won the 2022 NCAA title for the University of Florida.
“It’s a really cool opportunity for American tennis. This is what you guys always talk to us about: ‘Who’s going to be the next Grand Slam champion? Who’s going to do it?’” Shelton said at a news conference after eliminating yet another American, Tommy Paul.
“I always have the same reply: American tennis is going in a great direction, and I don’t know who’s going to be the next to get a Slam, be ‘the next Andy Roddick,’ but I know we’re all on our own path and we’re all doing things our own way and improving year to year,” Shelton said. “I can see it in these guys. Hopefully see the same kind of trend with myself.”
The country’s women have enjoyed far more success over the past two decades, thanks largely to the Williams sisters, but there also were recent major trophies earned by Sloane Stephens and Sofia Kenin. Two U.S. women reached the quarterfinals this time: Coco Gauff, a finalist at the 2022 French Open, and Madison Keys, who made it that far at the 2017 U.S. Open.
That was the last year there were a total of five players from the U.S. in the quarterfinals in New York – and back then, four of those five were women (who all reached the semifinals).
“It’s just really exciting tennis for America,” said Gauff, who plays Jelena Ostapenko on Tuesday for a semifinal berth. “I hope that the fans are excited.”
PLAYERS, FANS MIGHT FEEL HEAT THIS WEEK
Andy Murray prepared for the steamy conditions often found at the U.S. Open by simulating the “brutal heat and humidity” in New York this time of year with the help of, well, an actual steam room at his home.
The 36-year-old British tennis star set the humidity in there at 70% and spent hours riding a stationary bike nearby with the thermostat cranked up to 95 degree, making the air feel as muggy as it does every summer around Flushing Meadows, where the year’s last Grand Slam tournament entered its second week on Monday. “Just to try and help with the heat adaptation,” explained Murray, who claimed the title in New York in 2012 but lost in mild conditions in the second round this time.
If the start of competition at the 2023 U.S. Open offered a bit of a reprieve for athletes, ball crews and spectators alike, thanks to highs mostly in the 70s – “It is a little cooler than usual; that’s definitely easier to play in,” Belgian player Elise Mertens said last week – that changed Sunday, when it hit 90. The temperature was forecast to soar even more in the coming days.
That’s not a surprise: An Associated Press analysis shows the average high temperatures felt during the U.S. Open and the three other major tennis tournaments steadily have gotten higher and more dangerous in recent decades, reflecting the climate change that created record heat waves around the globe this summer. For athletes, it can keep them from playing their best and, worse, it increases the likelihood of heat-related illness.
The AP tracked the thermal comfort index, which measures air temperature in degrees while also taking into account humidity, radiation, wind and other factors that affect how the body responds. It looked at each Grand Slam event dating to 1988, the first year all four had 128-player fields for women and men. Collectively, the maximum temperatures at those tournaments have risen by nearly 5 degrees.
“People hear that and they don’t think it’s very much. It doesn’t necessarily register as alarming. Sometimes that 3- or 4-degree change can cause a doubling or even tripling of the number of hot days we experience,” said Daniel Bader, a climate scientist at Columbia University. “New York City’s temperatures have been rising, and that trend is projected to continue into the future.”
Other AP findings:
• From 1988 to 1992, daily highs in the thermal comfort index passed the threshold for strong heat stress, which is 90, on 7% of days with Grand Slam matches. From 2018 to 2022 that figure was 16%.
• The U.S. Open’s overall rise of nearly 3 degrees since 1988 means it isn’t even the Grand Slam site where the heat is increasing most rapidly. That’s the Australian Open, where the average high temperatures jumped by more than 6 degrees.
Still, the U.S. Open often was the hottest of the four majors in any given year.
Players can tell.
“I remember the year I won, the last four days it was super hot and super humid,” said 2016 U.S. Open champion Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland. “It’s one of the toughest tournaments, fitness-wise. … Your body really loses a lot of energy.”
The U.S. Open’s spot late in the tennis season creates an accumulation of wear-and-tear and general fatigue, but the sweltering conditions at Flushing Meadows likely deserve some blame for a high number of in-match retirements there.
Since 1988, there have been 17 occasions in which at least 10 players at one Slam stopped during matches, more than half of them at the U.S. Open. The three highest totals came in New York: 16 in 2015, 15 in 2011, and 14 in 2018, when a half-dozen men stopped on Day 2 because of heat issues.
“We’re seeing a lot more heat-related illnesses across all sports,” said Elan Goldwaser, a sports medicine physician at Columbia University Medical Center who works with athletes on the U.S. ski team and at Fordham University.
The blue hard courts at the U.S. Open absorb heat more than the grass at Wimbledon or the clay at the French Open, making it feel as much as 15 degrees hotter than the air temperature, according to the U.S. Tennis Association. Athletes “are essentially playing on a hot plate,” Goldwaser said.
“Their ability to hit the ball as hard starts to go down. Their reaction time starts to go down,” said Jon Femling, the clinical vice chair of emergency medicine at the University of New Mexico. “Getting heated up, your body’s first response is to try and cool down, and the way it does that is by pumping blood to all of your skin. … Your heart just has to immediately start working harder.”
The fans in the stands need to be careful, too, especially if alcohol is involved.
On one cooler-than-usual yet sunny day during qualifying rounds ahead of the Aug. 28-Sept. 10 main draw in New York, spectators grabbed free sunscreen samples and cooled off near misting fans.
“I have empathy, sympathy … for tennis players,” said Ola Yinka, a 45-year-old filmmaker from Chicago. “I used to play tennis as a kid, so I remember I would have fun with my dad. But at the same time, after like 10 minutes, I was like, ‘I don’t even want to play.’”
At the U.S. Open, players get 75 seconds to rest between games and two minutes between sets. That’s time enough to hydrate with water or electrolyte-packed drinks, enjoy cold air pushed through a tube or wrap an ice-filled towel around their neck.
It’s not enough time, though, to lower the body’s core temperature.
So physiotherapists watch for dizziness, cramping and other signs of heat illness.
“We might suggest that they’re not safe to play,” said Reshma Rathod, a WTA physiotherapist. “They may not want to stop.”
U.S. Open tournament referee Jake Garner said chair umpires serve as “the first line of defense” if someone is in real danger, but “in general, we leave (it up to) the players.”
While some athletes, like Murray, find unusual ways to train, others figure the acclimatization that comes from dealing with heat and humidity at tournament after tournament, week after week, year after year, or from living in places like Florida – a favorite base for many – will help.
“For a recreational player who may be watching on TV, to think about playing a tennis match when it’s 92 degrees out and 95% humidity – they might think that’s just unfathomable,” said Todd Ellenbecker, the ATP vice president for medical services. “But our players … play in that kind of heat throughout the entire year.”
AP writers James Martinez, Brian Mahoney and Mary Katherine WIldeman contributed to this story.