WHAT HAPPENED: On Day 5 of the 2022 US Open, Alison Riske-Amritraj of the United States made full use of home-court advantage, defeating Wang Xiyu of China, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, to advance to the Round of 16.
After breaking into the Top 100 in mid-June, the unseeded Wang upset No. 3 seed Maria Sakkari on Wednesday afternoon, and nearly scored another stunner against the No. 29 seed on Friday evening.
Wang and Riske-Amritraj traded games in the first set, both sending strong groundstrokes flying over the net, with low balls nearly forcing atheltic returns on both sides of the net. The American fired off a few clutch winners to break her opponent and take a 5-4 lead, then held serve to clinch the first set.
The 21-year-old from China hadn’t played the third round of a Grand Slam before Friday’s match under the lights, but she has a big game. The lefty’s fastest serve of the tournament is 119 mph—the same as Serena Williams’.
Encouraged by the cheers from the Chinese fans, Wang’s strategic shots kept Riske-Amritraj running all around the court, and helped her take the second set, 6-4.
But her red, white and blue ensemble wasn’t enough to advance to the fourth round of the stateside Grand Slam. Riske-Amritraj took an early lead in the third set, and although Wang persevered until the end of the match, the rising star lost her rhythm after taking a medical time-out early in the final set.
Riske-Amritraj remained consistent and made fewer unforced errors to claim the third set and book her place in the fourth round at Flushing Meadows.
WHAT IT MEANS: Riske-Amritraj will go on to play No. 17 seed Caroline Garcia, a 6-3, 6-2 winner against Bianca Andreescu on Friday.
Riske-Amritraj’s progress marks her second trip to the Round of 16 of the US Open—she did it for the first time in 2013. The Pittsburgh native has only reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal at the 2019 Wimbledon; defeating Garcia would add a second trip to that stage to her major resume.
The runner-up at Nottingham in June, Riske-Amritraj is now No. 29 on the WTA Tour, 11 spots shy of her career-high ranking in November 2019. She won her most recent title in Austria last November, and was the runner-up at Adelaide 2 in January and Nottingham in July, losing to Madison Keys and Beatriz Haddad Maia, respectively.
Her US Open run and resurgent streak could continue, as Riske-Amritraj has defeated Garcia each of the three times they’ve played.
MATCH POINT: Riske-Armitraj and Wang managed 30 rallies of nine shots or more as the sun set on Court 17, even though both athletes played one of the three longest women’s singles matches in Queens this year prior to their Round 3 matchup.
But at the end of the day, Riske-Amritraj only punched her ticket to the next round by the smallest of margins. She won 89 total points to Wang’s 87.
