Recap Day Seven US Open 2024 (Sunday 31 August) - Here's what you might've missed yesterday in the Big Apple

The seventh day of the US Open featured the least amount of matches so far at the event but still a lot of action. In our recap, we take a look at what you might've missed from Sunday 31 August.

There weren’t that many matches played on Sunday, September 1st, in New York. The reason is that we’re getting closer to the final, which means with every day there are fewer matches played. We’re going to go over all the matches played because there were some really interesting ones, and as always, we’re going to start with the WTA.

Gauff falls as Sabalenka rises

On the women’s side, we started off with Paula Badosa taking on Yafan Wang. It was an interesting match between two players who had played really well so far at the event but were not on the same level. As impressive as Wang has been lately, Paula Badosa is generally the far better player, and she proved it in this match, easily beating her Chinese opponent in two sets.

With the win, Badosa is now in the quarter-final, which is her best-ever result at the US Open, and it’s a great moment for her. She’s a player who contemplated stopping earlier this year, so having this experience is really great for her.

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After that, we saw Coco Gauff take on Emma Navarro. It was a rematch of their Wimbledon showdown, which Navarro won in two sets, and it was a pretty similar affair once more. Gauff hasn’t been playing solid tennis for a while, and while her level did look a bit better in New York, it was still miles away from what it was last year when she won the event.

Navarro, on the other hand, has been playing superb tennis lately, making a few deep runs, and she’s now in the quarter-final. The match was just a dreadful performance from Gauff, who finished with 19 double faults and 59 unforced errors, which are absurd numbers.

Navarro, to her credit, played a really solid match and deservedly won, but considering how close it was in the end and how poorly Gauff played, it’s pretty clear that Navarro likely wouldn’t have won this match if Gauff had been playing anything close to her best tennis.

The two night matches featured this year’s Australian Open finalists. In the first one, we saw Aussie Open champion Aryna Sabalenka beating her good friend and former doubles partner Elise Mertens. They won a Grand Slam together in the past, but these days both are mostly focusing on singles with varying success levels. Mertens has been pretty solid lately, but even with her solid play, the Belgian was no match for Sabalenka, who overpowered her pretty quickly.

Aryna Sabalenka rises again in New York.

Very few players can hang with Sabalenka when she’s hitting the ball this well, and Mertens is not one of them. She did try and battled well, but overall it was just another sturdy performance from Sabalenka, who keeps reminding people that she’s the number one favourite to win the event.

The final match was a rematch of the Olympic final. We had Qinwen Zheng taking on Donna Vekic, and it proved to be a really interesting one because the first set was a really close one that went into a tiebreak. Zheng won it, but Vekic responded by winning the second set. The Croatian wasn’t going to let this one go easily because she was hugely motivated after missing out on the Paris Gold.

Still, it wouldn’t prove enough as the Chinese player once again proved herself a proper gladiator by winning the match in three sets. Zheng has had lots of problems at this year’s US Open, having to play many three-set matches, but she’s done really well by powering through and keeping herself in contention.

After going through the WTA matches, we’re going to move to the ATP side, where quite a few things happened but overall not that many surprises.

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Fritz-Ruud and Popyrin-Tiafoe headline bumper night

On the ATP side, we started with an interesting opening match on Ashe between Andrey Rublev and Grigor Dimitrov. Rublev hadn’t looked that great at the US Open, but even when he doesn’t look that great, the Russian is still one of the best players in the world. It went somewhat expectedly and somewhat not.

It was a 5-set match, which is something we could have expected from a matchup this close, but it didn’t end with Rublev winning. The Russian has had problems in the past with losing these 4th round matchups or quarter-finals, simply failing to go really deep at the Grand Slam level. It happened once more as Dimitrov was able to win that match, keeping alive a dream of his swan song in New York.

In many ways, it was his best Grand Slam performance over the years, so getting a chance to play well here once more is a really nice thing for him. He won the opening two sets but then saw Rublev storm back to win the next two. Ultimately, it was Dimitrov who held his nerve better in the final one, winning it 6-3.

Taylor Fritz overpowers Casper Ruud.

After that match, we saw Taylor Fritz and Casper Ruud. Fritz was the nominal favourite in that one simply because he looked a bit sharper at the event so far and he was playing at home. The crowd being a factor is a huge one because we know that Americans love to play on native soil, and the New York crowd is pretty shameless about backing their players.

Ruud didn’t really care about any of that and won the opening set. However, what followed was a true masterclass by the American, who couldn’t be touched in the next games. He blasted over 20 aces and countless winners to overpower Ruud and see himself into the next round. With this level and the way the draw played out, Fritz could be a threat to go all the way.

The next match featured yet another American, Brandon Nakashima, taking on Alexander Zverev. Nakashima did really well at the event with his really solid combo of serve and forehand, but Zverev was another beast. He wouldn’t be beaten that easily, and while Nakashima won the opening set, that would be the final good thing he’d do. Zverev would win the next three easily to take the match and push himself to the next round.

The final men’s match of the day was a blockbuster between Frances Tiafoe and Alexei Popyrin. Both of them had played really well at the event, but Popyrin ousted Novak Djokovic, which is why many backed him to beat Tiafoe. He didn’t because the American turned out a vintage performance from two years ago to advance at the US Open once more.

A bit of a letdown from Popyrin but still an overall positive experience for him. Tiafoe on the hype train could be a problem because we saw what happened two years ago. So there you have it—that was the recap.