No. 1 Nadal crushes Dolgopolov, returns to US Open quarters

Associated PressSep 4, 2017, 4:41 PM EDT

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NEW YORK (AP) Rafael Nadal easily returned to the U.S. Open quarterfinals for the first time in four years by routing Alexandr Dolgopolov 6-2, 6-4, 6-1 on Monday.

Nadal turned in his most powerful performance yet on a dominant day for the No. 1 seeds, and moved a victory away from a potential semifinal showdown with longtime rival Roger Federer.

Shortly after top-seeded Karolina Pliskova overwhelmed American Jennifer Brady 6-1, 6-0 in just 47 minutes, Nadal punished an opponent who had beaten him in two of the previous three meetings.

He never gave the unseeded Dolgopolov a chance on Monday, breaking serve six times in the 1 hour, 41 minute match.

Federer was trying to keep alive his hopes of the long-awaited first matchup at the U.S. Open with Nadal when he brought an 11-0 record against No. 33 seed Philipp Kohlschreiber into their night matchup.

Nadal hadn’t reached the quarterfinals in Flushing Meadows since the last of his two U.S. Open titles in 2013. He advanced to face No. 9 David Goffin or unseeded teenager Andrey Rublev.

Nadal had dropped the first set in the two previous rounds but he was locked in from the start of his 50th U.S. Open victory, never losing serve and facing just two break points.

The second match of the day at Arthur Ashe Stadium started perhaps a little earlier than expected, thanks to the ease of Pliskova’s victory.

Two days after having to fight off a match point to advance, the Czech ran her unseeded opponent off the court as fans were still just filing into the grounds at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

The Czech won 22 of 24 points on her first serve, broke Brady’s serve six times and advanced to face either No. 20 CoCo Vandeweghe or unseeded Lucie Safarova.

“Sometimes you just need to have some of those matches where you can just really get through it. You don’t even know why, but the game improves so much,” Pliskova said. “So I didn’t change anything. I didn’t even practice yesterday. So there is nothing really what I did different. But I just felt much better.”

Pliskova was the runner-up to Angelique Kerber at Flushing Meadows last year and needs to get back to the final in order to remain atop the WTA rankings.

She wouldn’t have much problem if she plays as she did in a nearly flawless fourth-round performance, looking nothing like the player who nearly went home a round earlier.

Pliskova also played the first match on Ashe on Saturday. She dropped the first set and had to fight off a match point in the second before rallying to beat No. 27 Zhang Shuai 3-6, 7-5, 6-4.

This time, she raced to a 4-0 lead against an obviously nervous opponent, then won the second set in even more lopsided fashion. She won 25 points to just seven for Brady in the second set.

“I felt like she was playing pretty well today. I didn’t play my best. Maybe I gave her the opportunity to play well,” Brady said. “But, you know, I think she was hitting her spots and her serves well. She came out playing, I felt, like the No. 1 player.”

Former champion Juan Martin del Potro, the No. 24 seed, faced sixth-seeded Dominic Thiem, with the winner getting Federer if the five-time champion can improve his 31-1 record in night matches at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Women’s No. 4 Elina Svitolina meets No. 15 seed Madison Keys in the nightcap.

Keys and Vandeweghe are trying to join fellow Americans Venus Williams and Sloane Stephens into the women’s quarters.

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Dodig, Krajicek win French Open men’s doubles title, a year after squandering match points in final

Associated PressJun 10, 2023, 4:44 PM EDT

Clive Mason/Getty Images

A year after squandering three match points in the final, fourth-seeded Ivan Dodig of Croatia and Austin Krajicek of the United States won the men’s doubles title at the French Open on Saturday by beating unseeded Belgians Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen 6-4, 6-1.

Unlike last year’s tension-filled final, this one was never in doubt as the Croat-American duo broke the Belgians four times, saved all three break points they faced and wrapped up the win in 1 hour, 20 minutes.

It was the 38-year-old Dodig’s third major title in men’s doubles, after winning here in 2015 and at the Australian Open in 2021 – with different partners. But it was a first Grand Slam trophy for the 32-year-old Krajicek, a former top-100 ranked singles player.

Gille and Vliegen were playing together in their first major final.

Last year, Dodig and Krajicek lost to Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer after having three championship points in the second set.

At French Open, Francisco Cerundolo is mad at chair umpire over Holger Rune’s double-bounce

Associated PressJun 5, 2023, 8:49 PM EDT

Susan Mullane-USA TODAY Sports

PARIS – Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina was devastated about losing his French Open fourth-round match to Holger Rune of Denmark in a fifth-set tiebreaker Monday. He also was mad at chair umpire Kader Nouni for missing a double-bounce of the ball on a point that was awarded to Rune early in his 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (10-7) victory.

They were tied at a set apiece and on serve at 2-1 for the No. 6-seeded Rune early in the third at Court Suzanne Lenglen when the point of contention happened. Cerundolo, who was serving at deuce, hit a forehand that skidded low at the baseline and quickly bounced a second time – which normally would have meant that the point was his.

But Rune went ahead and got his racket on the ball, sending it back over the net. At about the same time, No. 23 seed Cerundolo was saying “sorry” to apologize for the odd way his forehand made the ball skim across the clay. Nouni was not immediately aware of the double-bounce, thought the ball was still in play and called Cerundolo for hindrance for talking during a point. That meant Rune got the point, and when he won the next one, too, he had a service break.

“It was unbelievable, because it was a clear double-bounce. I was mad at the umpire because he has to see it,” Cerundolo said. “It’s his fault.”

In tennis, electronic line-calling is used at many tournaments to make line calls, but replays are not used to check things like double-bounces or whether a point should be lost because a player touches the net, which is not allowed.

And while Cerundolo put the onus on the official, he also thought Rune could have ceded the point because of the double-bounce.

“For sure, I wish he would have done that, because it was a big moment,” Cerundolo said.

Rune, who moved into a matchup against No. 4 Casper Ruud in the quarterfinals, said he saw a replay after the following point, and “saw it was a double bounce. But the point already happened, and he called the score. So I felt sorry.”

But, Rune added: “This is tennis. This is sports. Some umpires, they make mistakes. Some for me; some for him. That’s life.”