Fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev crashed out of the United States Open on Wednesday night, losing, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (1), 7-6 (4), in the second round to his fellow 20-year-old Borna Coric.
With the late withdrawal of second-seeded Andy Murray, Zverev was the highest seed in his half of the draw, and he had a golden opportunity to make a deep run at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time.
But he still has not made it past the second round at the United States Open. And his best result at a Grand Slam event is reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon this year.
“It’s upsetting because the draw is pretty open in the bottom part,” Zverev said. “I felt like I should have been the favored there. You know, I just played a very, very bad match, so it’s unfortunate. But that’s how it is.”
Instead, his older brother, Mischa, is the last Zverev standing after he beat Benoit Paire, 6-3, 6-2, 3-6, 6-7 (3), 7-5, to reach the third round.
Fifth-seeded Marin Cilic, the 2014 United States Open champion, is now the highest remaining seed in the bottom half of the draw.
On a night when the tournament lost one rising star, another one grew brighter as 18-year-old Denis Shapovalov of Canada ousted eighth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (3), in a night match at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Shapovalov upset the top-ranked Rafael Nadal at the Rogers Cup in Montreal this month during a run to the semifinals. Shapovalov, playing in his first United States Open, will meet Kyle Edmund of Britain in the third round.
Nick Kyrgios, the mercurial Australian star, offered courtside spectators a running commentary during his first-round match against his countryman John Millman on Wednesday afternoon. Kyrgios complained about his right shoulder, which he appeared to reinjure. He barked an obscenity, which drew a code violation. And he bemoaned his bad fortune, which led to another early exit.
Kyrgios, the No. 14 seed, never goes down quietly. In that sense, his 6-3, 1-6, 6-4, 6-1 loss to Millman felt like more of the same: same fiery temper, same lack of composure, same disappointing result.
The twist, at least this week, was that Kyrgios arrived at the U.S. Open with his game and his emotions seemingly intact. He was coming off a fine run at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati, where he defeated Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals and later advanced to the final before losing to Grigor Dimitrov.
But against Millman, Kyrgios appeared to aggravate a lingering shoulder injury, which forced him to retire from a match at the Citi Open in Washington this month. On Wednesday, during a changeover in the third set, Kyrgios shared his troubles with a physiotherapist who massaged his shoulder.
“I’m feeling good, I finally have a good week last week, and then I come to the U.S. Open,” Kyrgios said.
As the match wore on, Kyrgios exhausted his allotment of medical treatments. He commemorated losing the third set by smashing his racket into the general shape of the letter G. (He earned a point penalty for that bit of pyrotechnics.) He spent the rest of the match shaking his head. — SCOTT CACCIOLA
Sharapova’s Run Continues
This time Maria Sharapova did not shed any tears or fall to her hands and knees as if she had won a championship. She merely smiled, waved and advanced.
Sharapova, who made her emotional return to Grand Slam tennis on Monday with a striking victory over second-seeded Simona Halep, defeated Timea Babos of Hungary, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-1, in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday in what she described as a “scrappy” match during an interview on court afterward.
Sharapova’s victory over Halep was her first Grand Slam match since the Australian Open in January 2016, after which she served a 15-month doping suspension.
In the third round on Friday, Sharapova will play Sofia Kenin, an 18-year-old who, like Sharapova, was born in Russia but moved to the United States as young child. Kenin beat another young American, Sachia Vickery, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (0).
Kenin was one of several American women to win on Wednesday, including CoCo Vandeweghe (who beat her fellow American Alison Riske), Jennifer Brady, Shelby Rodgers (who beat her fellow American Kayla Day), Nicole Gibbs, Christina McHale and Sloane Stephens, who upset No. 11 Dominika Cibulkova, 6-2, 5-7, 6-3, in 2 hours 42 minutes.
And the dean of all American women, ninth-seeded Venus Williams, advanced to the third round with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Oceáne Dodin at Ashe.
After rain suspended or postponed all but nine matches on Tuesday, Wednesday’s schedule is bursting. There were 87 matches, a mix of first-rounders and second-rounders.
■The last match to finish was fifth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki’s 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-1 loss to Ekaterina Makarova. It ended at 12:11 a.m.
■Garbiñe Muguruza’s second-round match did not start until after 10 p.m., but she quickly dispatched Ying-Ying Duan, 6-4, 6-0, in 1 hour 5 minutes.
■ John Isner, the No. 10 seed and highest-ranked American man, moved on to the third round with a 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 win over Hyeon Chung of South Korea. No. 17 Sam Querrey joined Isner in the next round with a 6-4, 6-1, 6-4 victory over Dudi Sela. Another American man, Jared Donaldson, pushed No. 16 seed Lucas Pouille to a fifth set, but lost, 7-5, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4.
■ Sixth-seeded Dominic Thiem quickly finished off a match suspended Tuesday, defeating Alex de Minaur, 6-4, 6-1, 6-1. Thiem will next face the 19-year-old American Taylor Fritz, who gained his first win at a Grand Slam tournament, beating Marcos Baghdatis, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3. Read more about Fritz here.
■ Fourth-seeded Elina Svitolina lost the second set after her first-round match against Katerina Siniakova resumed, but won the match, 6-0, 6-7 (5), 6-3. No. 10 Agnieszka Radwanska and No. 13 Petra Kvitova also advanced.
■ The No. 14 seed Kristina Mladenovic, who has struggled since the French Open, lost to Monica Niculescu, 6-3, 6-2. No. 22 Shuai Peng was beaten by Donna Vekic, 6-0, 6-2.
■ Nicolas Mahut, a qualifier, knocked out 20th-seeded Albert Ramos-Viñolas, 4-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 6-0 in a second-round match. Richard Gasquet, the No. 26 seed on the men’s side, fell in the first round to Leonardo Mayer, 3-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-2. Mayer earned a spot in the main draw as a lucky loser from qualifying. The qualifier Stefano Travaglia upset his Italian countryman Fabio Fognini, the No. 22 seed, 6-4, 7-6 (8), 3-6, 6-0. No. 27 seed Pablo Cuevas also lost, 7-5, 7-6(3), 6-1, to Damir Dzumhur.
■ Seventh-seeded Grigor Dimitrov, who won the Cincinnati event last week, cruised into the second round with a 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 win over Vaclav Safranek. He will play Andrey Rublev on Thursday.
■ Tomas Berdych, the No. 15 seed, topped the American Ryan Harrison, 6-4, 6-2, 7-6 (4). No. 24 Juan Martin del Potro won his first-round match, 6-4, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5), on Ashe Stadium against Henri Laaksonen.
■ Gaël Monfils, the No. 18 seed and a semifinalist last year, opened his tournament with a 7-6 (6), 6-3, 6-4 victory against his fellow Frenchman Jérémy Chardy. Ben Austen recently profiled Monfils for The New York Times Magazine. Monfils will next play Donald Young of the United States.
■ CiCi Bellis, a U.S. Open crowd favorite, served for the match against Nao Hibino, but lost 12 of the last 15 points to fall, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5, in the first round.
■ Brienne Minor, the reigning N.C.A.A. Division I women’s singles champion, lost her U.S. Open debut to Ons Jabeur, 6-1, 7-5. Read about Minor and her tennis-loving family.
Eugenie Bouchard, ranked No. 76, was the surprise headliner of Wednesday’s packed schedule, slotted into the first match on Arthur Ashe Stadium against 89th-ranked Evgeniya Rodina.
Bouchard, who reached two Grand Slam semifinals and a Wimbledon final in 2014, was a rising star of the game but has sputtered recently. She seemed out of sorts in the match, hitting 46 unforced errors to Rodina’s 18 in a 7-6(2), 6-1 loss.
“It’s one of those matches you kind of want to forget about,” she said. “I know obviously the unforced error count was a bit too high, especially at the end of that first set. Yeah, I just didn’t really know what to do out there.”
Bouchard admitted she had low hopes coming into the match. “My confidence is not high at all at this point in time, and I definitely had question marks about what my level would be like coming out today,” she said.
Further complicating the scene, Bouchard is the plaintiff in an active lawsuit against the U.S.T.A., seeking damages for a concussion she sustained at the tournament in 2015, which she said was caused by a slippery floor. The U.S.T.A. is denying liability for the injury, and the case could go to trial in the coming months.
“I’m able to concentrate on the tennis when I’m here, but, I mean, I definitely have bad memories from here two years ago,” she said.
With her struggles and her litigation, Bouchard acknowledged that she, too, was surprised by her court assignment.
“I was surprised, yeah,” Bouchard said. “But it’s always an amazing opportunity to play on the biggest tennis court in the world.” — BEN ROTHENBERG
Mladenovic’s Struggles Continue
Kristina Mladenovic, the No. 14 seed, was the first seeded player to lose on Wednesday, falling to Monica Niculescu, 6-3, 6-2, in a first-round match that began Tuesday.
Mladenovic had been one of the most dominant players early in the season. From February through the fourth round of the French Open, she compiled a 31-8 record, which included a title in St. Petersburg; finals in Acapulco, Stuttgart and Madrid; and a semifinal in Indian Wells.
But after an electrifying win in the fourth round of the French Open over the defending champion Garbiñe Muguruza, Mladenovic has stalled, going 7-10 and losing her last five matches, all in straight sets.
Mladenovic in May was ranked as high as fourth in the year-to-date rankings, which determine the field for the year-ending WTA Finals in Singapore. She is currently ninth in that race, one spot out of the top-eight cutoff. She is likely to fall further after this U.S. Open. — BEN ROTHENBERG
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/sports/tennis/us-open-results.html
<br><br>Rafael Nadal is through to the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/USOpen?src=hash">#USOpen</a> semi-finals.<br><br>Over to you, Roger Federer.<br><br>Reaction <a href="https://t.co/HlNoaTJKmY">https://t.co/HlNoaTJKmY</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/bbctennis?src=hash">#bbctennis</a> <a href="https://t.co/Z7HydRJjpb">pic.twitter.com/Z7HydRJjpb</a></p>— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) <a href="https://twitter.com/BBCSport/status/905522376573689856">September 6, 2017</a></blockquote>
