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

Day four of the US Open brought us a lot of interesting action, including one of the biggest upsets in recent memory, so let’s recap everything that happened yesterday in New York.

It was a packed schedule with many great players attending, and we’re going to go over everything that happened, starting with the WTA. A couple of great matches happened, so let’s take a closer look.

The early matches didn’t feature much star power, but they had plenty of excitement as quite a few unexpected things happened. Katie Boulter went into the match against Bouzas Maneiro as a huge favourite, but she was beaten by the Spaniard in two sets. Sara Errani never did well in New York, but she’s doing it now, making the 3rd round after another stunning upset, this time over Caroline Dolehide, who just bested Danielle Collins.

At noon local time, we finally had a star out, and it was Iga Swiatek. She faced experienced doubles player, now turned singles player, Ena Shibahara, and it didn’t go well for the Japanese player. From the start, Swiatek was able to dominate, and she never really let go, finishing the match with 6-0 6-1. Not much to say about this one outside of Swiatek slowly but surely working her way to really good form. It still wasn’t a perfect display, but it was the best we’ve seen from her this week.

Then we had an unfortunate injury as Karolina Pliskova injured her ankle only a couple of minutes into play against Jasmine Paolini. She wasn’t favoured to win that match, but this is just the latest terrible news for Pliskova, who hasn’t been playing much precisely due to all the physical issues she’s experienced lately. This is just another setback, but hopefully it won’t be anything major and just a minor sprain.

Next, we had our first major upset on the WTA side as Mirra Andreeva crashed out. She faced the very tricky American, Ashlyn Krueger, and failed to really calm down under heavy pressure. Krueger barely made it to the 2nd round, but such is tennis. She looked great in this one and pulled off a major upset against a player who generally does avoid upsets.

Andreeva usually gets beaten only by the best players in the world because her game is so stable and she’s very consistent, but today was not one of those days. Today she was beaten quite easily, but it wouldn’t be the last upset of the day nor the biggest. Next up, we have Elena Rybakina and yet another setback as the Kazakhstani player had to withdraw from the event due to an illness. We don’t know what’s going on, but per reports, the player couldn’t play and that’s why she withdrew.

Lots of strange things have been going on in the Rybakina camp this year, from the various injuries and the sicknesses that she’s had. There are some rumours flying around about why she let go of her longtime coach recently, and it’s just a really strange situation. Hopefully, this sickness isn’t anything serious, and she gets back to the courts because she hasn’t really been healthy for a couple of months now.

The final two matches of the day on the WTA side were played at night, and they were pretty interesting matches. We had Naomi Osaka take on Karolina Muchova, and it was another upset. Kind of. Osaka went into the matchup slightly favoured after her brilliant performance in the first round, and for the first few games, she looked great.

There was tremendous pressure on Muchova, but she’s one of the most adaptable players on Tour, and she showed it. The Czech player withstood all that pressure and kept playing well, eventually breaking Osaka and winning the first set. The second one featured equally good play from both, with Muchova taking an early break and then losing it.

We would eventually get to a tiebreak where Osaka also held a lead but then lost it. She lost the second set and match on a wild forehand, which unfortunately wasn’t the only one. She had a couple too many of those in the match. Still, an overall positive event for Osaka.

The final match was between Caroline Wozniacki and Renata Zarazua. The Danish player got a really favourable draw in New York, and she’s taking advantage of it. A simple 6-3 6-3 win, and she moves on.

As you can see, there wasn’t any mention of a historic upset here, which means it happened on the ATP side of the tournament, and we’re simply going to start with it because there is no point delaying it. The 3rd seed Carlos Alcaraz is out of the event. He bowed out after two and a half hours of play against Botic van de Zandschulp, who is ranked 74th in the world.

This is a major upset, even though the Dutch player has played some of his best tennis ever in New York. What happened last night, though, almost never happens, and that’s Carlos Alcaraz playing pretty poorly. Not only did he play poorly, but his body language was pretty poor as well. It was about as atypical as it can get for the Spaniard.

Meanwhile, we have van de Zandschulp, who was playing his best match of the year, easily. This might have been the best match he’s ever played because he was amazing for the entirety of it. The score was 6-1 7-5 6-4, which tells you all you need to know. How many times does Alcaraz drop a set 6-1, and then to a player who frankly isn’t that good enough? Yeah, it was just one of those nights for the Spaniard and quite a shocking one. Arguably the biggest upset in recent US Open memory.

That was the final match of the day, so let’s go back and see what other matches happened. Daniil Medvedev didn’t allow any upsets in his match. He also played in the night shift, but he was able to keep his match in three sets. The final set was a bit problematic, but Medvedev escaped in 3, and he’ll be glad about it.

Tommy Paul was also out on the courts, and he was playing superb tennis against Max Purcell. It wasn’t close; it was never going to be close, and the Australian retired in the 3rd set when it became obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to do much on the courts.

Jakub Mensik continued his solid run at the US Open by securing the 3rd round, but it took 5 sets against a very inspired wild card from Australia—Tristan Schoolkate. Overall, Mensik is back to playing good tennis, which is very good for the youngster. Alex de Minaur is proving to be in good shape as well, as he added another straight-sets win.

The Aussie didn’t play singles since the Wimbledon event due to a hip injury, but he seems to be quite healthy here and playing rather well. We’ll see whether that holds up in the coming rounds or when he finally faces a really strong player.

Jack Draper also continued playing superb tennis as the British player had no issues beating clay specialist Diaz Acosta. Draper won in straight sets and looks primed for a really great run here if he can keep the level high and consistent. It’s been a problem in the past, so we’ll see whether he can do it this time around.

After producing a stunning upset by beating Stefanos Tsitsipas, Thanasi Kokkinakis failed to replicate that in his next match. The inconsistencies came back to haunt the Aussie as he was beaten by the pretty solid Nuno Borges. It was a very winnable match for Kokkinakis, so this is a pretty upsetting loss for him.

Top seed Jannik Sinner was also in action today, and he was amazing. The Italian faced Alex Michelsen, which is a somewhat complicated matchup on paper, but he had no issues beating him easily in three sets. Sinner has somehow managed to look like the best player here in New York so far, and he’s marching to the final.

The earlier matches featured two seeds going out as well. Hubert Hurkacz held an early lead against Jordan Thompson, but the Australian never gave up and was able to grind out the match against Hurkacz, who admittedly is lacking matches, having returned only recently. Sebastian Korda found himself in a similar situation.

He was facing the always tricky Tomas Machac and basically threw away the match. He was up 4-2 and 40-0 on his serve. He would go on to shockingly lose that game and then the opening set as well. From there, things only spiralled out of control as Machac won the match in three sets for the shocking upset. Korda dealt with an upper arm problem, but overall still a pretty bizarre conclusion to the match.