NEW YORK – Yes, Serena Williams won in straight sets again. And yes, she moved into an all-American showdown at the U.S. Open against Sloane Stephens. Still, this victory did not quite go according to plan.
Her serve only so-so at times, her footwork a bit off, Williams got by and got through Thursday night against an opponent ranked just 117th, beating Margarita Gasparyan 6-2, 6-4 and letting out a cry of “Yes!” at the end that reverberated in a nearly empty Arthur Ashe Stadium.
It sounded more like relief than excitement.
“The only thing that gets me flustered is really me, like, because I always feel like I’m not winning every point. I mean, like, that doesn’t make sense,” said Williams, who has won six of her 23 Grand Slam singles titles at Flushing Meadows and was the runner-up the past two years.
“I just think with the pressure and everything that I felt like I just needed to be perfect. I always feel like I’m not perfect unless I’m perfect. That’s not a fun way to live your career and live your life.”
Williams, whose older sister Venus was one of the few people in the stands, said whatever blips came Thursday “could help me know what not to do next time.”
That next time will be Saturday against Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open champion.
It will be their seventh matchup; Williams leads 5-1, including victories in the past four meetings, but they last met at the 2015 French Open. Stephens’ lone head-to-head victory came all the way back at the 2013 Australian Open.
This caliber of contest certainly doesn’t feel as if it belongs in merely the third round at a Grand Slam tournament, but that’s the luck of the draw this time.
“I’m playing such a good player so early,” Williams said, “so I have to bring what I can even more.”
What will also be odd is the quiet. All spectators were banned from Flushing Meadows this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I know if there were fans it would be so lit, and I’m kind of sad that we’re not playing in front of fans, because it would be so fun,” said the 26th-seeded Stephens, who advanced by defeating Olga Govortsova 6-2, 6-2. “The atmosphere won’t be as big, but obviously a big opportunity to play against the greatest player in the world. So, yeah, unfortunate but still fortunate.”
Williams turns 39 this month and has expended a lot of energy lately. All five matches she played from the resumption of the WTA tour after its COVID-19 hiatus to the start of the U.S. Open went three sets; her record was 3-2.
Both U.S. Open wins came in straight sets, at least. But things weren’t as easy as they might have been against Gasparyan, who deploys a one-handed backhand and whose only trip to the fourth round at a major ended with a loss to Williams at the 2016 Australian Open.
Playing with a strip of tape on the outside of her left leg, Williams served for the first set at 5-1 and got broken. She went up 4-2 in the second set and got broken, dropped 8 of 10 points in one stretch and found herself at 4-all.In all, she put only 58% of her first serves in and was broken three times.
Light rain fell during the warmup as Ashe was turned into an indoor facility, and a serious downpour loudly pelted the roof once it was closed.
Louis Armstrong Stadium was covered during the second set of 2019 men’s runner-up Daniil Medvedev’s 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 win over 116th-ranked Christopher O’Connell, and stayed that way for two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka’s 6-1, 6-3 victory over No. 5 seed Aryna Sabalenka.
Matches on all the outside courts were suspended in the evening because of the shower.
Earlier winners included No. 2 Dominic Thiem, No. 11 Karen Khachanov, 2014 champion Marin Cilic and unseeded Americans Frances Tiafoe and J.J. Wolf.
No. 14 Grigor Dimitrov and No. 25 Milos Raonic were eliminated.
No. 9 seed Johanna Konta lost 2-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4 to Sorana Cirstea, and No. 10 Garbiñe Muguruza – who owns two major titles – was beaten 7-5, 6-3 by Tsvetana Pironkova, who took a three-year break from professional tennis to have a son and is in her first tournament since Wimbledon in 2017.
“It’s just great to be playing without that extra pressure that I had on my myself before,” the 32-year-old Bulgarian said. “Before it was, like, almost a life-and-death situation for me to win a match. Right now, it’s not really like that.”
Other women moving on included No. 2 Sofia Kenin, who won the Australian Open in February; No. 7 Madison Keys, No. 15 Maria Sakkari, No. 18 Donna Vekic and No. 22 Amanda Anisimova, a 19-year-old American who beat 16-year-old American Kristina Scott.
“It was weird, because I’ve actually never played someone who is younger than me in a Grand Slam,” said Anisimova, a semifinalist at last year’s French Open. “It was a first for me. I was pretty nervous.”
AP photo by Frank Franklin II / Andy Murray returns a shot to Felix Auger-Aliassime during a third-round match Thursday night at the U.S. Open in New York.Murray out already
There would be no valiant comeback from a two-set deficit for Andy Murray this time.
His weary body – and the Canadian kid on the other side of the net – simply wouldn’t allow it.
Murray, the three-time Grand Slam champion still working his way back from a pair of hip operations, was beaten in the second round by Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-2, 6-3, 6-4.
“I need to build up my body and my conditioning,” Murray said.
The 15th-seeded Auger-Aliassime dominated throughout, compiling a 52-9 edge in total winners, including 24 aces, and taking 41 of the 46 points when he put his first serve in play.
Perhaps even more notably, Auger-Aliassime never faced so much as a single break point against Murray, one of the game’s great returners.
This was just too much to ask of Murray, a 33-year-old with a metal hip who two days earlier toiled for 4 hours, 39 minutes while building his 10th career comeback win from two sets down to beat Yoshihito Nishioka 4-6, 4-6, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (4), 6-4.
Auger-Aliassime sat in his player suite for part of that match and was aware Thursday he shouldn’t feel too confident despite holding a big lead.
“In the back of your mind, you know you’re facing Andy Murray,” Auger-Aliassime said. “You never know what tricks he’s got in his pocket.”
That was Murray’s first Grand Slam match in nearly 20 months. He thought his problematic hip would force him to retire in 2019, but he made it back to the ATP tour.
“The more tournaments you play, the more matches you play, the more you build up the robustness in your body, which I don’t really have,” Murray said. “Look, definitely tennis wise could be better as well. I feel like I played some good stuff at times, but it was quite up and down.”
Murray is a former No. 1-ranked player whose résumé also includes two Wimbledon championships and two Olympic singles gold medals.
Auger-Aliassime, who turned 20 last month, is considered one of the up-and-coming future stars of men’s tennis.
He recalled being at Flushing Meadows in 2011 and attending a match of Murray’s back then.
“Life is funny,” Auger-Aliassime said. “It’s crazy that nine years later, I’m here and playing him.”
Auger-Aliassime joins No. 12 seed Denis Shapovalov and unseeded Vasek Pospisil to give Canada three men in the third round of any Grand Slam tournament for the first time, according to the ATP.
Auger-Aliassime’s next opponent will be No. 23 Dan Evans of Britain or Corentin Moutet of France; their match was suspended in the third set because of rain Thursday night and will resume Friday.
Shapovalov plays No. 19 Taylor Fritz of the United States in the third round Friday.
Pospisil advanced Thursday by beating yet another Canadian, 25th-seeded Raonic, 6-7 (1), 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-3.
Pospisil faces No. 8 Roberto Bautista Agut on Saturday for a berth in the fourth round.