Schedule / Preview Day Nine US Open 2024 (Tuesday 3 September) including Fritz-Zverev, Navarro-Badosa and Qinwen Zheng-Sabalenka

The ninth day of the US Open will bring us the first quarterfinal matches of the event with Aryna Sabalenka, Alexander Zverev, and Paula Badosa in action. Our preview looks ahead to the action

While the ninth day of the US Open won’t feature too many matches, it’s still going to be a really interesting and packed schedule. We only have four matches on the menu, but all four of them will be played on Arthur Ashe Stadium, making this a memorable experience for players and fans alike.

As we only get matches on Ashe, we won’t be breaking the programme down by courts because they are all going to be played on the same court. Nothing is changing about the way matches will be played, so the schedule will begin at noon local time.

The first match will feature two players who were both born in New York, which is a pretty interesting thing to note. It’s going to be Paula Badosa against Emma Navarro, and both have played amazing tennis so far at the event. Badosa didn’t have the toughest draw, but she faced some tricky opponents and handled most of them really well.

Emma Navarro had a trickier draw and faced some really tough opponents. She barely survived against Marta Kostyuk, and even the one against Coco Gauff wasn’t the easiest matchup, but she found solutions in both and won them in three sets. That’s what makes Navarro so tough. She’s a player who can play on a really high level, and she’s going to enjoy crowd support in this one.

Badosa will need to be really sharp and problem-solve on the spot, but Navarro will make it very hard on her. Overall, it’s just a really nice matchup to get the day underway as a spot in the semi-final is at stake.

The second match on Ashe and the final match of the day’s schedule will be between Alexander Zverev and Taylor Fritz. It’s pretty interesting that this match wasn’t put at night, but there is a chance that Zverev wasn’t very keen on that. He had one of his matches this week finish very late, so he was likely keen to stay on earlier.

It’s a pretty fascinating matchup between two players who are playing on about an equal level. Both have had tremendous performances at the US Open so far, so this will certainly be a rather complicated one. Zverev is the favourite simply because he’s the higher-ranked player and generally has had one of the best seasons of his life so far. He actually leads the Tour in match wins this year, which proves all of that.

Fritz is going to enjoy the crowd backing, though, and he’ll be really keen on making the semi-final after failing to do so a couple of times in the past. This year, it feels like it could finally happen because he’s been really strong so far, and maybe it’s just that year. The draw is wide open, so all of these players certainly fancy their chances in this one.

After these first two matches of the day, we’re going to have two more matches in the night shift, and the first of those will start at 7 pm local time, which has been the case in the previous days as well. The match is a WTA match, and it’s the rematch of this year’s Australian Open final as Aryna Sabalenka is taking on Qinwen Zheng. They played in Melbourne in January, and Sabalenka was able to win that one rather comfortably.

Zheng has looked pretty sharp for much of this year and is certainly a better player compared to January and crucially more adept at big matches. She won the Paris Olympics recently and bested Iga Swiatek en route to the final, so she’s certainly capable of winning big matches. Beating Sabalenka, though, will take a hugely impressive effort because the Belarusian is very good.

She’s been playing on a top level, and she’s the favourite to win the event after making the final last year. It’s just an amazing matchup that should yield a fascinating match, and that’s why it was one of the matches selected for the premium schedule spot in the evening.

The second night shift match and the final match of the day will be an ATP match, and it will be fan favourite Frances Tiafoe taking on Grigor Dimitrov. It’s a very interesting matchup between the very erratic Tiafoe and a consummate professional in Dimitrov, who has been doing amazing stuff in the past few years.

The Bulgarian has had some deep runs in New York in the past, but he would argue that he’s never played as well as he has in the past few years. A final in Miami earlier this year certainly proves that he’s really feeling himself on these courts, and there is nothing that he should fear in a matchup with Tiafoe.

Fatigue could pose a factor because he did play in a five-setter leading up to this match. Tiafoe is also younger and certainly in better shape overall, so in a very long match, the American would likely fancy his chances. He’s going to fancy his chances anyway because he’ll have the packed schedule rooting for him, and that’s when Tiafoe plays some of his best tennis. It’s a great way to finish off the day of tennis in New York as this promises to be a really close matchup whoever wins.

Overall, it just promises to be a really exciting day of tennis with four really good matches which will show us which four players will find themselves in the semi-finals. We have excellent matchups and some really great competitors, so it should be a great day of tennis, and you will be able to find all about it here, so stick with us for daily reports from those matches and then also a recap tomorrow morning to catch up on what had happened the day before.

Paula Badosa (26) v Emma Navarro (13)

Taylor Fritz (12) v Alexander Zverev (4)

Qinwen Zheng (7) v Aryna Sabalenka (2)

Grigor Dimitrov (9) v Frances Tiafoe (20)