U.S. Open: Shapovalov's string of stunners continues, takes out Tsonga
18-year-old Canadian eliminates tournament's No. 8 seed in straight sets
Canada's Denis Shapovalov advanced into the third round of the U.S. Open on Wednesday night after a 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (3) victory over eighth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France.
The 18-year-old from Richmond Hill, Ont., will next face Kyle Edmund of Britain.
Shapovalov, ranked No. 69 in the world, started the match strong at Arthur Ashe Stadium by breaking Tsonga's serve on the first game of the opening set. Both players held serve for the rest of the set.
"It's a dream come true for me," he said during an on court interview. "I've always dreamed of playing a night match on Arthur Ashe."
Shapovalov had got off to a good start breaking the 32-year-old Tsonga to love in the opening game and the only sign of nerves came in the third set when he was broken while serving for the match before he rebounded in the tie-break.
The Canadian had a big break in the second set went Tsonga double faulted to let Shapovalov go up 4-3. He used that momentum to hold on and take a 2-0 set lead.
Shapovalov once again broke Tsonga to put him up 4-3 in the third set, but the Frenchman got it back when Shapovalov was serving for the match to tie the set at 5-5.
The third set went to a tiebreak which Shapovalov dominated to win the match in just over two hours 11 minutes.
"I don't think that win was any bit routine," said Shapovalov. "I played unbelievable today, very high level. I don't know why but I just managed to stay loose and go for my shots the whole match.
"I just stayed calm and just waited for my next chance and took it."
Shapovalov, who finished the match with 28 winners, gained entry into the main draw of the final Grand Slam tournament of the season last week with three victories in qualifying.
It's been a great run of late for Shapovalov, who became the youngest man to reach a Masters semifinal earlier this month at the Rogers Cup in Montreal. That tournament included an upset victory over world No. 1 Rafael Nadal.
"Every win that I've been going through, it's been securing anyone's doubts or even my own doubts about whether I belong with these guys, playing these high-level tournaments," said Shapovalov, who beat Russia's Daniil Medvedev in the first round. "This win, it's definitely another confidence boost. It shows that Montreal wasn't a fluke week. I mean to do it back-to-back, it's not easy.
"I'm extremely proud of myself for how long I've come and it's going to be another battle against Kyle and I'm going to do my best to take it to him but it's going to be a difficult match."
When Shapovalov and Edmund faced each other in the Davis Cup in February, Shapovalov was defaulted and fined $7,000 for hitting a ball in anger that struck the chair umpire in the face and broke a bone under his left eye. But the Canadian rebounded in July, defeating Edmund at the Queen's Club Championships.
"He's an unbelievable player," Shapovalov said of his third round opponent. "He goes for his shots, he's not afraid to take it to the guy.
"There's no easy matches here. For a guy like me, every match is tough and I'm going to have to battle it out."
Sharapova redemption tour
Maria Sharapova used 12 aces to help overcome a shaky start and reach the U.S. Open's third round.
The five-time major champion got better and better as the match wore on and came back to beat 59th-ranked Timea Babos of Hungary 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-1 in 2 hours, 19 minutes.
Sharapova is playing in her first Grand Slam tournament since serving a 15-month doping suspension. She beat No. 2 seed Simona Halep in the first round at Flushing Meadows.
Sharapova made 19 unforced errors in the opening set against Babos, but cleaned up her play, cutting the mistakes to 12 in the second set and five in the third.
"It wasn't my best tennis," Sharapova acknowledged in an on-court interview. "It felt like it was a scrappy match.
"In the second set, I just felt like I was physically fresh and that gave me a lot of confidence. I just wanted to be fittest player out there in the end, and I really felt like I was."
Bouchard ousted
Canada's Eugenie Bouchard was eliminated from the first round of the U.S. Open, falling 7-6 (2), 6-1 to Russia's Evgeniya Rodina.
Facing double match point, Bouchard sent a backhand into the net as her record dropped to 12-17 on the season.
Bouchard, ranked 76th in the world, has failed to make it past the second round of her last eight tournaments, starting with a second-round exit at the French Open.
On Wednesday, the native of Westmount, Que., made 46 unforced errors, compared to 18 for Rodina.
Bouchard converted three of her four break point opportunities, but struggled to hold serve. Rodina broke Bouchard five times on nine chances.
Vancouver's Vasek Pospisil was forced to withdraw from his first-round match with an apparent back injury after dropping the first set against Spain's Fernando Verdasco. Later Wednesday, Denis Shapovalov of Richmond Hill, Ont., took on eighth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France.
Looming lawsuit
Bouchard did not expect to find herself playing a U.S. Open match in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday, considering her ongoing lawsuit against the U.S. Tennis Association — stemming from a fall at the Open two years ago — and her losing record over the past two years.
"I was surprised, yeah," she said about the court assignment, "but it's always an amazing opportunity to play on the biggest tennis court in the world."
Asked about the choice to put Bouchard vs. Rodina in the tournament's main arena, USTA spokesman Chris Widmaier said: "A lot of factors go into scheduling...[Bouchard] was scheduled to be first on Ashe, and we're comfortable with that decision."
At Flushing Meadows in 2015, Bouchard got a concussion from a fall and withdrew before her fourth-round match, then missed most of the rest of the season. She filed suit against the USTA in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn that year, then showed up at the 2016 U.S. Open and lost in the first round.
When her lawsuit was brought up at Wednesday's news conference, Bouchard simply said: "We're still in the process."
4-seed knocked off
Croatia's Borna Coric pulled off the biggest upset in the men's draw of the U.S. Open so far, beating fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (1), 7-6 (4).
The 61st-ranked Coric screamed in triumph when Zverev sailed a forehand over the baseline to end the match. It was among 58 unforced errors committed by Zverev.
Coric moves on to the third round to face 28th-seeded Kevin Anderson of South Africa, a 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 winner over Latvia's Ernests Gulbis 6-3, 7-5, 6-4.
Venus onto 3rd round
Venus Williams has reached the third round for the seventh Grand Slam tournament in a row.
The 37-year-old Williams got broken while serving for each set but played well enough to hold off her big-hitting — and much younger — opponent, beating 20-year-old Oceane Dodin of France 7-5, 6-4 at the U.S. Open.
Williams won two of her seven major titles at Flushing Meadows, back in 2000 and 2001.
With files from The Associated Press