Recap Day Three US Open 2024 - Here's what you might've missed yesterday at Flushing Meadows

Day Three of the US Open (Wednesday 28 August) is in the books, and we’re going to recap everything that happened for you.

It was a very interesting day three at the US Open with many great matches and some really interesting moments. It was a super hot day in New York, causing all kinds of problems for many players as we saw multiple retirements and generally just very long battles.

We’ll start with the WTA, where the day began with a reigning Grand Slam champion crashing out of the event.

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Barbora Krejčíková won Wimbledon this year, but she wasn’t able to do much in the next Grand Slam. The Czech player had some solid results in New York in the past, but this time around, it’s an early exit for her. She faced Elena Ruse from Romania, who is known as a very streaky, hard-hitting player.

The Romanian player performing as she did wasn’t such a huge surprise because she’s capable of it, but what was surprising was Krejčíková being unable to really handle it. She was beaten in two sets, which is a bit too easy for a reigning Grand Slam champion, especially the most recent Grand Slam winner. Her winning Wimbledon was a surprise, but she’s still a two-time champion, and that’s proof of her quality as a player.

From Wimbledon win to first round exit. Back to the drawing board for Krejcikova.

Another huge favorite who played at the same time was Paula Badosa, but unlike Krejčíková, she was able to take care of business. It wasn’t the cleanest match from Badosa, nor was it the easiest, because she faced US player Taylor Townsend, but over the course of two sets, the Spaniard did prove to be the better player, and that’s what allowed her to move on to the next round.

Olympic champion Qinwen Zheng faced huge problems once more. After barely surviving a 1st round showdown with Amanda Anisimova, the Chinese player faced another in-form player in, Erika Andreeva. The Russian gave her plenty of problems as she won the opening set, forcing Zheng to once again play from behind.

She would prove to be comfortable in that spot once again as she battled back to take the second set. She then easily outplayed Andreeva in the final set to win the match once more. Zheng is having a very strange US Open. She struggles greatly until she loses a set, and then she simply turns it on and delivers a stunning level. As long as she keeps winning, she likely won’t care too much.

Aryna Sabalenka as ever impressed.

Aryna Sabalenka was also on the court, and she really didn’t have any kind of issues. Her opponent was Lucia Bronzetti, a player known to cause trouble here and there, but there wasn’t any for Sabalenka. She played another solid match to win 6-3, 6-1, once again showing herself to be the top favorite.

Sabalenka continued to serve well and hit the ball really well, which is something we haven’t really seen from any other player. She’s by far the best player right now and most likely to win the trophy.

Olympic silver-medallist Donna Vekić keeps winning matches. The Croatian continued her career run by winning yet another match without too many issues. She’s currently projected to be 22nd in the rankings, which is only 3 spots lower than her career-high ranking of 19. If she keeps winning like this, she’ll certainly reach that rank this week, but if not this week, then surely by the end of the year. This is likely going to go down as the best year of her career.

Defending champ Coco Gauff was also out on the tennis courts. She faced the always tricky Tatjana Maria, and it was a tale of two sets for the American. She once again started very slow, struggling with the slices of Maria, but still was able to win the set 6-4. It wasn’t very good play from Gauff, who keeps winning here in New York, but she’s yet to face a really good player.

It will be interesting to see how she’ll do against a good player when she’s playing like this. After taking that opening set, Gauff was able to get serious and then delivered a bagel against Maria, who, to be fair, should have been bageled in the first one as well.

A couple of veterans like Elina Svitolina and Victoria Azarenka were also in action, and both won their matches comfortably in two sets. Svitolina will face Gauff in the 3rd round, and that’s going to be interesting. Andy Roddick backed Svitolina for the upset there, and from what we’ve seen so far at the event, it seems fairly likely.

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On the men’s side, we got a lot of pretty dramatic matches that went the distance. It started early in the program, where Jiri Lehecka was getting smashed by a qualifier who had a 10-20 record on the ATP Tour. The Czech player lost a close opening set, got bageled in the 2nd, was on his way to getting bageled again in the 3rd but rallied to win that one and then two more to win in 5. It took him over four hours to get that one.

Andrey Rublev is another player who needed over four hours to win his match. He faced French big server Arthur Rinderknech, whom he faced last year as well. The French player had been playing lots of tennis lately and was in super good form. He won the first two sets, but then Rublev mounted a comeback in spectacular fashion.

Another match that almost lasted four hours was between Lorenzo Musetti and Miomir Kecmanovic. That one finished after 3 hours and 50 minutes, and it was Musetti who won it. The Italian hasn’t been playing as sharp as he was during the summer, but he’s still playing at a really solid level and winning matches. That’s very good to see because he was always going to need to improve on hard courts if he hoped to become a Top 10 player as he had hoped to become.

There were those that cruised in their matches as well. Grigor Dimitrov had no problems in his match, beating Rinky Hijikata in straight sets. Brandon Nakashima continued his good play in recent weeks by beating Arthur Cazaux of France in three sets.

Alexander Zverev impressed in an improved display.

Alexander Zverev continued his campaign with a more serious approach in this one. He wasn’t going to repeat the mistake of losing a set once more, especially as he was facing a more potent opponent this time around. Overall, he performed much better, which is always good to see.

Frances Tiafoe is another player who has continued to do very well from last week. He faced Alexander Shevchenko, and while the Russian sometimes gave him problems, the American overcame all of that. Unfortunately, it ended with Shevchenko retiring after an injury, but still a very solid display from Tiafoe.

His compatriot Ben Shelton also produced a really solid level to oust former Top 10 player Roberto Bautista Agut. Shelton has looked very good so far, and he will face Frances Tiafoe in the next one. They faced each other at last year’s US Open, and Shelton was able to win that match in four sets, eventually making it all the way to the semi-final.

They also played earlier this year in Houston on clay, and Shelton also won that one in three sets. In any case, it promises to be a superb matchup, which will likely be played on Ashe with the crowd fully into it.

The final three matches of the day were super interesting. In the first, Casper Ruud continued to play pretty well to overcome a spirited effort from Gael Monfils, who pushed him really hard. Ruud won the first two easily, but then Monfils mounted a pretty strong comeback, resulting in a win in the 3rd set and a really close 4th one. Overall, still too solid from Ruud.

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Another interesting one was between Taylor Fritz and Matteo Berrettini. Both of them have done really well at the event in the past, but Fritz was the favourite simply because the matchup with Berrettini never saw him defeated before. It didn’t happen this time around either, as he was able to surprisingly beat him in straight sets. It was just a too-solid performance from Fritz overall.

The final match of the day was between Novak Djokovic and compatriot Laslo Djere. They played last year as well, and that one was a hugely complicated one because it went the distance with Djokovic barely winning 3-2.

Djokovic had a much easier time this year as Djere played a 5-set match in the previous round, which left him quite depleted. He kept it quite close in the first two, in which Djokovic won 6-4 and 6-4, but down 2-0 in the final one, Djere opted to retire due to exhaustion.