Alize Cornet looked in plenty of trouble against Tsvetana Pironkova when she found herself a set and 0-2 down, but she’s reeled off four games in a row and is now 4-2 up in the second. If Cornet does win this one, it will be her first grand slam quarter-final in a very respectable career.
Auger-Aliassime and Thiem are now warming up ahead of a mouthwatering tie on Ashe. The winner will play Australia’s Alex de Minaur, who beat Auger-Aliassime’s fellow Canadian Vasek Popisil an hour or so ago.
“Felix is a great player. No real weaknesses. Great to watch. Great athlete, great person,” said Thiem before today’s match. “The only thing that he’s missing is the experience. That’s what I’m trying to play for my advantage. It’s not my first second week at a grand slam, but it is his. That’s probably my biggest advantage what I have in this match.”
In the quarter-finals Serena Williams will play the winner of the match between Alize Cornet and Tsvetana Pironkova, which is currently in progress on Armstrong. Pironkova is 6-4, 2-0 up, and looks all set. She and Serena haven’t played since 2015 (Pironkova has just come back from a three-year parenthood break), with the American 4-0 up on the head-to-head.
It’s Serena’s 100th win on Arthur Ashe, and takes her to a 53rd Slam quarter-final. This is what she says about it:
I don’t think about it [records]. It’s like we’re just playing, and having fun. Of course I thought about it a little, but it’s a completely different match and a completely different scenario. I just kept fighting. She was doing so well, being so aggressive, and I knew I needed to do the same thing. It’s definitely less pressure [with no fans]. I miss the fans but this is different. It’s different because the breaks are a little longer with the fans here, the clapping makes the breaks longer and I can use a little bit of that.
Serena Williams beats Maria Sakkari!
3rd set: Williams* 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 Sakkari Serena has done poorly at the net today, and at 15-0 Sakkari tempts her forwards and then lashes her pass crosscourt. But that’s where the good news ends for her. A few moments later Serena has two match points; the first is saved with a forehand winner, but Serena wins the second!
3rd set: Williams 6-3, 6-7, 5-3 Sakkari* Serena wins the first point with an excellent forehand, the second when Sakkari nets one of her own, and the third with the most vicious of crosscourt backhand service return winners. Three break points. Serena overhits a backhand. Sakkari comes to the net to volley a winner. And then she floats a weak backhand into the net, and Serena will serve for the match!
3rd set: Williams* 6-3, 6-7, 4-3 Sakkari At 30-30, and after Sakkari had on the previous point with an excellent, short-backswing backhand, Serena conjures an ace. A long backhand later, she noses ahead once again.
3rd set: Williams 6-3, 6-7, 3-3 Sakkari* A really excellent service game from Sakkari, one entirely out of keeping with the last 45 minutes’ action. There’s a fantastic forehand, almost lazily swatted away, and a couple of service winners including an ace to seal it.
3rd set: Williams* 6-3, 6-7, 3-2 Sakkari A key shot at 30-0, when Serena hits a crosscourt backhand that isn’t quite good enough. She has to predict where Sakkari’s going to hit her own backhand, guesses right, but the shot’s so good she loses anyway. Serena holds all the same.
Serena breaks back!
3rd set: Williams 6-3, 6-7, 2-2 Sakkari* There’s a sublime backhand return here from Serena, which keeps Sakkari on her toes while simultaneously almost destroying them. A few moments later it’s 30-40, a chance for Serena to get back on level terms. There follow two net cords. The first loops perfectly into the corner for a winner to make it deuce, the second loops wide to give Sakkari advantage. Coming so close together they seem particularly cruel, but Serena doesn’t dwell on her misfortune, and within moments she’s pummelling another forehand across court for a clean winner to level at 2-2.
In other news, there’s a minor delay at 30-15 after a ball boy spots something on the court that shouldn’t be there. It looks very much like a red chocolate m&m. I don’t really understand how that got there. Did someone throw it? Who? There’s only about 15 people in the arena who aren’t playing. Is the umpire surreptitiously snacking?
In other news, Murray and Skupski have lost the second set of their doubles quarter-final to Pavic and Soares on a tie break, and are thus out.
3rd set: Williams* 6-3, 6-7, 1-2 Sakkari A great point here, as Sakkari forces Serena out wide before playing to the other side; the Amertican races across to somehow return the shot, and Sakkari then fractionally overhits what should have been a wrong-footing winner. That’s at 15-15; Serena holds to 15.
3rd set: Williams 6-3, 6-7, 0-2 Sakkari* Sakari holds to 30, with a double fault along the way. I must admit to spending most of the game searching our photo wires for pictures of sweaty ball people, but this is a topic that has gone scandalously uncovered. Here’s a report on Alex de Minaur’s straight-sets win over Vasek Pospisil:
Sakkari breaks to take a third-set lead!
3rd set: Williams* 6-3, 6-7, 0-1 Sakkari And so we go again, and Serena immediately stumbles! Sakkari wins her fifth break point of the match with a crosscourt pass, and for the first time she converts as Serena hits long.
Maria Sakkari levels at a set each!
2nd set: Williams 6-3, 6-7 Sakkari Sakkari sprints into a 3-0 lead, with a fantastic return forcing the error to take the third of those points. Serena nets a backhand to make it 4-0, but gets a foothold in the game with a fabulous down-the-line backhand return. At 4-2 Serena seems to mishit a backhand – perhaps the racket slipped in her hand – and it lands midcourt, but Sakkari fluffs her chance to put it away.
So it might have been a bit easier. Nothing about this set is straightforward though. Sakkari goes to 6-4 with two set points; the first is saved with a vicious killer crosscourt forehand but the second is on the Greek’s own serve. This is her chance. She overhits the first serve, and the second is thrashed straight back past her by Serena, a backhand this time.
It takes some gall after that to hit a second serve to that backhand next point, but that’s what Sakkari does and this time Serena misses the shot, and a wild forehand later it’s one set all!
Greece’s Maria Sakkari celebrates a point. Photograph: Seth Wenig/AP
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2nd set: Williams* 6-3, 6-6 Sakkari At 15-15, having just lost a point to a fabulous backhand, Serena comes to the net but too slowly, Sakkari hits the ball at her ankles and she can’t get it back. It’s a glimpse of light. Serena wins the next point, but then Sakkari gets the luckiest of breaks, the ball looping off the net cord and plopping a couple of inches over the net. Serena screams in anguish; Sakkari has a set point. It’s saved, but an unforced error gifts Sakkari another. This time Serena’s first serve is too good – a bit of a rarity, in a game with a couple of wild ones and a set in which Serena’s first-serve percentage is plummeting, now at 55% (and that only because she wins the game with an ace). This set will be decided on a tie-break.
2nd set: Williams 6-3, 5-6 Sakkari* Serena is so hard to live with, and Sakkari is doing extremely well not just to find the occasional foothold in this match but to actually be standing pretty firm. The 38-year-old powers her way to a couple of points, but the Greek is finding excellent angles and when Serena eventually overhits a backhand seals a hold to 30.
2nd set: Williams* 6-3, 5-5 Sakkari Serena thunders into a 40-0 lead, and would have won it there but for a net cord, which loops up to buy Sakkari a bit of extra time. No matter, because her next serve is unreturnable. The people really struggling through all this are the ball boys and ball girls, whose grey T-shirts seem to show every drop of sweat. There are quite a few sweat-stained ball-people on Arthur Ashe at the moment, but none of them are players.
2nd set: Williams 6-3, 4-5 Sakkari* It’s heating up rather nicely here, as Sakkari holds to 15 to keep the pressure on. Meanwhile it’s all over on Armstrong, where Alex De Minaur has beaten Vasek Pospisil 7-6, 6-3, 6-2, and looks to have played very impressively in the process.
2nd set: Williams* 6-3, 4-4 Sakkari Serena goes 40-0 up, at which point she serves her first double fault of the match, and then after another missed first serve she nets a backhand. Sakkari can’t get her next serve back into play, though, so it’s a hold to 30.
2nd set: Williams 6-3, 3-4 Sakkari* There is one genuinely remarkable shot here. Sakkari takes a 40-0 lead but then horribly mishits a backhand and then misses a first serve. Williams absolutely pounds the second serve back towards the server’s ankles, roaring as she does so, and Sakkari is barely able to move her racked before it’s past her. It’s a shot of awesome quality and all-round viciousness, but she barely does anything right in the next couple of points, and Sakkari eventually secures the hold.
2nd set: Williams* 6-3, 3-3 Sakkari At 30-30 Serena hits a second serve out wide, and Sakkari sends it into the net. But at 40-30 the ball takes an odd bounce, leading to Serena swishing her racket through air as it skews past her. No matter, a service winner and an ace later, it’s 3-3. Out on Court 17 Murray & Skupsi emphatically lost the first set of their men’s doubles quarter-final 6-2 but appear to have settled, and lead the second set 2-1 (on serve)
2nd set: Williams 6-3, 2-3 Sakkari* A hold to 15 for Sakkari, who greets Serena’s final shot nestling in the net with a full-throttle roar. Her own serve has been remarkably consistent: 66% first-serve percentage in set one, 63% in set two.
2nd set: Williams* 6-3, 2-2 Sakkari Serena’s first-serve percentage has shot up from 46% in set one to 64% in set two, and even when she misses she wins two points in this game with high, kicking second-serves that reach Sakkari at shoulder height and are hit down into the net.
2nd set: Williams 6-3, 1-2 Sakkari* Sakkari can’t get away here, and from 15-0 and 40-0 Serena pushes her to deuce and proceeds to take control of the next point, but with the opportunity to win it she goes the wrong way, hits straight to Sakkari and as an added bonus hits long, and a service winner later she goes a nose ahead in set two.
2nd set: Williams* 6-3, 1-1 Sakkari Balanced on a knife-edge now. Meanwhile on Armstrong Pospisil wins an epic service game, the first game of the third set, but then loses his next service game to love and is 1-2 down in the third, and two sets down.
2nd set: Williams 6-3, 0-1 Sakkari* It didn’t take long for Sakkari to regroup. There’s an excellent wrongfooting crosscourt backhand here, another down the line that clips the back of the line to make it 40-15, and a second-serve ace to win it from there.
Serena Williams wins the first set!
1st set: Williams* 6-3 Sakkari Serena wins the first point with a forehand of great power and immaculate precision, follows that with an ace out wide, and the Greek realises this set is probably not going to go her way. It ends with another ace, down the middle this time. On Armstrong, De Minaur wins the second set and now has a firm grip on his match, leading Pospisil as he does 7-6, 6-3.
1st set: Williams 5-3 Sakkari* Having said that, Sakkari holds to love. Elsewhere the all-British duo of Jamie Murray and Neal Skupski and playing their men’s doubles quarter-final on Court 17, and it’s fair to stay that it has started pretty badly for them. They’ve been broken twice already by Mate Pavic and Bruno Soares and it’s 0-3 in the first set.
1st set: Williams* 5-2 Sakkari Serena is going through the gears here, now has the pedal to the metal and Sakkari seems to be struggling to keep up. She holds to 15.
1st set: Williams 4-2 Sakkari* Serena breaks! Sakkari has hit five aces already, but her star shot here is a backhand down-the-line pass that Serena gets a racket to but can’t return (to be fair, she only needed to pass because of a ropey drop shot). What’s for sure is that after the opening skirmishes both players have got out their cannons, and Serena blasts her way to a break point of her own here, overhits her next return to give it up, but fights her way to another and another one after that, and it’s this third opportunity that she grasps, forcing an error with a vicious crosscourt forehand!
1st set: Williams* 3-2 Sakkari Well that certainly wasn’t a straightforward hold. Sakkari rips into a 0-40 lead, whereupon she overhits a forehand, nets another forehand, fails to return a strong serve down the middle, fails to return another strong serve down the middle, and overhits another forehand. The statisticians mark two of those down as unforced errors. On Louis Armstrong De Minaur has broken in the second set and leads 7-6, 3-1.
1st set: Williams 2-2 Sakkari* Another straightforward hold. In her first two service games Sakkari has won 100% of points on second serve (two), as well as 86% on first serve.
1st set: Williams* 2-1 Sakkari Serena holds to 15, and it feels like the battle has not really started. Elsewhere Taylor Townsend and Asia Muhammad are into the semi-finals of the women’s doubles, after beating Gabriela Dabrowski and Alison Riske 6-4, 6-2.
1st set: Williams 1-1 Sakkari* There’s some vicious and pinpoint serving here from Maria Sakkari, who hits three aces on her way to holding to love.
1st set: Williams* 1-0 Sakkari There’s a minor scare at 15-30, saved with an ace, and a slog at 30-30 until a long rally ends with Sakkari netting, but Serena is on the board.
Serena is on court and warming up. We should get under way in a couple of minutes.
Alex de Minaur takes the lead against Pospisil, winning the last six points on the spin to steal the first-set tie-break 8-6!
Australia’s Alex de Minaur returns a shot to Vasek Pospisil of Canada. Photograph: Seth Wenig/AP
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Pospisil canters to a 6-2 lead over De Minaur in the first-set tie-break, and then wobbles: as I type it’s 6-6.
The Pospisil-De Minaur match is pretty good, if you happen to be near a broadcasting service. The Australian hit a killer backhand in the last game, and Pospisil has just taken vicious forehand revenge and gone 6-5 up in the first set. Sadly I am about to have to leave it to switch my focus to Serena Williams.
Asia Muhammad and Taylor Townsend have won the first set of their doubles quarter-final on Court 17, and have broken in the first game of the second.
Pospisil has just received a time violation warning for a vary marginal delay. He didn’t seem very chuffed about it, and it led to more wasted time as he grumbled.
Updated
So there are a couple of matches ongoing, the women’s doubles quarter-final on Court 17 involving three Americans and a Canadian, and another Canadian in the fourth round of the men’s singles in Vasek Pospisil, who is seven games into his fourth-round match against the Australian Alex De Minaur and leads 4-3, on serve.
Hello world!
Welcome! Today Serena Williams’ quest for a 24th Grand Slam continues as she and Sofia Kenin try to join their fellow Americans Jennifer Brady and Shelby Rogers in the quarter-finals. Williams plays the No15 seed, Maria Sakkari of Greece, in the first match on Ashe while Kenin faces the No16 seed, Elise Mertens of Belgium, in the last. Elsewhere Victoria Azarenka looks to continue her resurgence since the tour resumed from the pandemic in a competition in which she has twice reached the final, losing to Serena in three sets in both 2012 and 2013. With Novak Djokovic gone from the men’s draw, the No2 seed, Dominic Thiem, and No3, Daniil Medvedev – last year’s runner-up to Rafael Nadal – have a clearer path to the title, though both are in the other half of the draw so don’t stand to make an immediate benefit. Here’s today’s order of play:
Arthur Ashe Stadium, 12pm local/5pm BST
Maria Sakkari (Greece, 15) v Serena Williams (USA, 3)
Felix Auger-Aliassime (Canada, 15) v Dominic Thiem (Austria, 2)
Arthur Ashe Stadium, 7pm local/midnight BST
Frances Tiafoe (USA) v Daniil Medvedev (Russia, 3)
Elise Mertens (Belgium, 16) v Sofia Kenin (USA, 2)
Louis Armstrong Stadium, 11am local/4pm BST
Vasek Pospisil (Canada) v Alex De Minaur (Australia, 21)
Alize Cornet (France) v Tsvetana Pironkova (Bulgaria)
Matteo Berrettini (Italy, 6) v Andrey Rublev (Russia, 10)
Not before 5pm/10pm: Victoria Azarenka (Belarus) v Karolina Muchova (Czech Republic, 20)
Court 17, 11am local/4pm BST
Women’s doubles quarter-final: Gabriela Dabrowski (Can) & Alison Riske (USA) (1) v Asia Muhammad (USA) & Taylor Townsend (USA)
Men’s doubles quarter-final: Jamie Murray (GB) & Neal Skupski (GB) v Mate Pavic (Cro) & Bruno Soares (Bra)
Not before 4pm/9pm: Men’s doubles quarter-final: Jean-Julien Rojer (Ned) & Horia Tecau (Rom) v Rohan Bopanna (Ind) & Denis Shapovalov (Can)
Women’s doubles quarter-final: Nicole Melichar (USA) & Yi Fan Xu (Chn) (3) v Hayley Carter (USA) & Luisa Stefani (Bra)
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