2024 US Open Day Six Recap Friday 30 August - Look back on yesterday's action at Flushing Meadows

The sixth day of the US Open was a significant one, quite similar to yesterday, as we had another major upset on the men’s side headlining our recap.

Let’s take a closer look at that and everything else that happened on the previous day. As always, we’ll start on the WTA side of tennis and then work our way back to the ATP.

Navarro and Sabalenka shine

On the WTA side, we started with a proper banger of a match. Paula Badosa faced Elena Ruse, and while the Spaniard was heavily favoured and ultimately won, it was a brutal affair that could have gone the other way. Ruse was having a dream US Open so far, taking out favourites like Barbora Krejcikova, and she had a match point here as well. She won the opening set, lost the second badly, but rallied from a break down in the final one to force a match point.

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Badosa saved it and then went on to outplay the Romanian in a tiebreak to ten, which featured plenty of excitement. It was a huge moment for Badosa, who admitted to the media after the match that she contemplated stopping tennis altogether in May, which isn’t shocking because, at that time, she could barely get onto the court.

On another court, we had Qinwen Zheng take on Jule Niemeier, and it wasn’t a complicated match for the Australian Open finalist. She smashed her opponent easily in two sets to finally win a match in two. She’s slowly starting to look better and better and is closing in on that Olympic form. Funnily enough, her next opponent will be the player she faced in the Olympics final, Donna Vekic.

That promises to be an interesting one with a storyline, but Zheng will once again be likely favoured to win the match. The first match on Ashe featured Coco Gauff and Elina Svitolina. It was a pretty fascinating matchup that yielded an interesting match earlier this year. Gauff won that one, and she won this one as well, though for a while it looked like she wouldn’t. Svitolina demonstrated all of her defensive capabilities in this one, taking the opening set 6-3 behind many errors from Gauff.

The American would ultimately calm down in the second set and win that one, which flipped the momentum completely to her side. The final set proved to be quite easy as Gauff jumped out to an early lead, and even with a late push by Svitolina, it didn’t really change things too much. The defending champion keeps marching on, even if her tennis doesn’t look that great right now. Yesterday wasn’t the best match either.

Coco Gauff shines bright...

Another match we have to mention is Victoria Azarenka crashing out against Yafan Wang. The Chinese player has played super solid tennis lately, but this is a rather big surprise. Azarenka loves to play in New York and generally has played really well here; however, she didn’t look her best here. Azarenka took a medical timeout in her previous match, which happened the day before, so there is a chance that she might have been dealing with something. That would certainly explain the somewhat lower level. Overall, a solid result for the veteran.

Donna Vekic continued her stellar play over the summer by taking down the always tricky Peyton Stearns. The American came into this one in top form after a good run in Cleveland and was actually up early in the match, but the Croatian kept battling and then easily outplayed her opponent in two sets.

Another American who stood on the courts is Emma Navarro, but she did much better than Stearns. Despite facing a really inspired Marta Kostyuk, who was playing some of her best tennis, Navarro was able to navigate that matchup and win it. She’s proving to be a really solid player, well on her way to the Top 10 with the way she’s been playing in recent weeks. This was another brilliant performance.

The night shift featured quite a bit of drama because it included some amazing matchups. Last year’s semi-finalist Madison Keys took on the in-form Elise Mertens, and after taking the opening set, Keys looked primed for another win. Mertens was dealing with physical problems, called the physio, but then kept playing and outplayed Keys to win in 3 sets. An odd sequence of events, but she deserved it.

The second match featured top favourite Aryna Sabalenka taking on Ekaterina Alexandrova, and it was a somewhat complicated match. Sabalenka was outclassed in the opening set, which the Russian won 6-2. After that, though, the Belarusian got serious and smashed her opponent in two easy sets to win the match. Not the cleanest performance from Sabalenka in New York, but she keeps winning.

Djokovic falls to join Alcaraz

On the men’s side, we have another huge upset, this one possibly even more surprising than the one the night before. After Carlos Alcaraz fell, Novak Djokovic is also out. The Serbian faced Australian Alexei Popyrin, who beat him in 4 sets to complete the stunning upset. It has to be said that Djokovic looked pretty lacklustre in New York this year. He didn’t serve well, which happened in this one as well.

He didn’t really play well, which again happened, and Popyrin has been simply very solid lately. He powered himself through with his massive forehand and was able to use his chances to ultimately win the match. There are some parallels between Djokovic and Alcaraz as neither played that well at the event, and both were beaten by solid players.

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It was the 3rd time they played this year, as the Aussie won a set in both previous matches. There were simply things that made you think that the Aussie would have a chance in this one, and he did. He took them and won, so that makes Jannik Sinner now a huge favourite to win the event.

The second night shift match on the ATP side featured Alexander Zverev and Tomas Etcheverry. It was a match that started very late due to the schedule and finished well after midnight, which nobody will be happy with. Zverev did ultimately win the match in 4 sets, but this late finish will certainly leave some effects on him, and he won’t be happy about it. We’ll see whether he can rally and recover for the rest of the event.

Taylor Fritz made the American fans very happy by continuing his solid run at the US Open. He beat Francisco Comesana pretty easily because he was heavily favoured to win that one, and he did. He’s not the only American that did good stuff on the day, though, because we got a classic between Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe.

It’s a shame they played so early in the draw, but Tiafoe was able to avenge his loss to Shelton last year. It wasn’t the best performance from Tiafoe, but he played a really smart match, forcing Shelton to hit one more ball. If we know anything about him, it’s that sometimes he puts a bit too much power in his shots, and he overhit badly in spurts in this match, which caused him to lose. Still, it was a very fun 5-setter, which was great to see.

Grigor Dimitrov continued his unbothered run against Tallon Griekspoor, beating him in three simple sets. After a few shaky weeks, the Bulgarian is back to playing really solid tennis, and we’ll have to wait and see whether he can actually translate it to a really meaningful run with the somewhat depleted draw now. Dimitrov has never won a Grand Slam, and getting one would be a pretty nice swan song for him.

Andrey Rublev also continued his solid play, beating Jiri Lehecka, who just recently returned from injury. It was a good run for him, but overall Rublev proved a bit too strong. He will be glad to escape in 3 sets, though, because this match had 5 sets written all over it. Those were all the singles matches, but the doubles draw is also happening right now, and we have to mention one really special match.

After failing to do so at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa finally played on the Grand Slam together. It came in the mixed doubles with the popularly called Tsitsidosa playing against Giuliana Olmos and Santiago Gonzalez. That’s a really strong doubles pairing, and unfortunately, they weren’t able to win that one, but they kept it really close in those two sets.

Hopefully, we see them again on the courts because this was a super fun match and a really good PR opportunity for the Tours as they’re a couple. Overall, it was a pretty interesting day of tennis, and more will follow today, so stick with us for all the daily updates from the US Open.