Four intriguing quarterfinal matchups headline Day 10 of the 2021 US Open, as a mix of famous names and a few less-so share the day’s marquee. On the men’s side, top seed Novak Djokovic takes on No. 7 seed Matteo Berrettini, while No. 4 seed Alexander Zverev squares off with party-crasher Lloyd Harris. The women’s quarters feature No. 4 seed Karolina Pliskova battling No. 17 Maria Sakkari, and No. 11 Belinda Bencic taking on qualifier Emma Raducanu. All have played brilliantly to this point; all will need to maintain that brilliance to play on. Eight players, each three wins away from one prestigious title. Any way you add it up, that’s the formula for a perfect Day 10.
It’s a pretty remarkable achievement to win the four matches required to get you into the quarterfinals of a major. It’s all the more remarkable to win seven, which is what qualifier Raducanu has had to do to get to this point. And it’s just flat-out ridiculous to win three matches in qualifying and four in the main draw without dropping a single set. But that’s exactly what the 18-year-old Brit has done in reaching the final eight of a major for the first time in her young career. She’s been flat-out fantastic.
In truth, Raducanu’s brilliant advance through the Flushing fortnight has not been a complete surprise. We saw glimpses of the teen’s growing greatness this summer at Wimbledon, where she played her wild card into a fourth-round showing. But even at that, few could have expected what we’ve seen from her here. Displaying an awesome combination of relentless power and remarkable precision, the Brit has blitzed through the draw, dropping just 15 games in four rounds—the fewest of any of the eight woman who’ve reached this point. She is only the third woman qualifier to reach the US Open quarterfinals in more than a half century of Open tennis.
The teen, whose bio includes the fact that she “completed her A-level exams in both math and English this summer,” figures to get her toughest test of this tournament today against Bencic, a semifinalist here in 2019, who came to New York on the heels of winning the gold medal in singles at this summer’s Tokyo Olympics.
The 24-year-old Swiss has also played her way to her second career US Open quarterfinal without dropping a set, although she was pushed to the limit in her fourth-round battle with No. 7 Iga Swiatek, winning an 84-minute first set that went to 14-12 in the tiebreak—the longest tiebreak of the Open so far.
In addition to her gold-medal triumph, Bencic has reached two other finals this year—one on hard courts and one on grass. Just prior to the Open, she made a run to the quarters of the US Open Series event in Cincinnati.
This is the first meeting between the two and it figures to be a good one. Two tough competitors sharing one large stage. Expect this one to go the distance; expect Bencic to move on. In three, the Swiss is into the semifinals.
Zverev, who also grabbed gold in Tokyo, was, of course, runner-up here last year, losing a heart-breaking five-set final to Dominic Thiem after squandering a two-sets-to-none lead and serving for the match in the fifth. It was the sort of loss that either breaks a player or inspires him to return and raise his game. For Zverev, it’s been the latter.
The 24-year-old German is competing in his third major quarterfinal of 2021, reaching this same stage at both the Aussie Open and Roland Garros. In Paris, he pushed on to the semis before losing to Stefanos Tsitsipas. Backing up his Olympic win by taking the title at last month’s Cincinnati event, Zverev is now on a 15-match winning streak. Certainly, he’s played from the start of this event like a man with his sights set firmly on a second-Sunday showing and a healthy helping of redemption.
But Zverev will be smart not to look past Harris in this encounter, as the 24-year-old South African has himself looked pretty darn impressive in reaching his first career major quarterfinal. The easy-going Harris is anything but on court, unleashing an awesome air and ground assault that has so far planted two seeds—No. 7 Denis Shapovalov in Round 3, and No. 22 Reilly Opelka in round four. In that fourth-round win, Harris out-aced the big-serving American 36-24, broke Opelka six times, and won a remarkable 92 percent of his first-serve points. That’s pretty much the definition of “impenetrable.”
The German has won both of their previous head-to-heads, most recently in the second round of Cincinnati. But Harris has been a tough out, and he’s already shown that he’s not overly impressed by those names that are accompanied by numbers. This one could easily go the distance, although little will be easy for either man in getting there. In a furious five, Zverev moves on to the semis; one step closer to a shot at redemption.
Watch: Zverev vs. Sinner, Round of 16 Highlights
