There have been upsets throughout the first eight days at the US Open, but the biggest one so far has to be Iga Swiatek's Fourth Round loss to Jelena Ostapenko.
It has opened up the top half of the women's draw and that also means Coco Gauff is perhaps under even more pressure to make another Grand Slam Final and for the first time at the US Open. The American has to take on Ostapenko, who beat Gauff at the Australian Open back in January, and it looks a dangerous Quarter Final in what is a tournament where we could get a really big surprise Grand Slam winner.
The men's draw remains intact as far as the favourites are concerned, although it has been a tournament with new names reaching the second week of the Grand Slam. The home crowd will still be hoping for an American double at the end of this week, but Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic remain active and the strong favourites to clean up the Grand Slam titles having combined to win the last five Slams played going back to the French Open in 2022.
All four Quarter Final matches scheduled for Tuesday will be played on Arthur Ashe as the tournament begins winding towards a conclusion and the selections from the day's play can be read below.
Frances Tiafoe - 1.5 sets v Ben Shelton: Serena Williams carried American tennis on her back for a long time and we have seen a few more players coming through on the WTA side of the Tour. However, a nation that has been starved of men's successes looks to have a number of players who are now capable of challenging the best players on the Tour and some fresh faces also coming through with big ambitions.
A place in the Semi Final is guaranteed for at least one American male player and that will be to the winner of this Quarter Final between Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton.
Both are players who are crowd favourites, although the Tiafoe run to the Semi Final in New York City twelve months ago means he has the bigger standing in the sport of the two right now. He has admitted how much he enjoys playing at the US Open and Frances Tiafoe is a figure that many leading names in sports and other fields are looking forward to backing.
The feeling is that he may have a few more supporters in this big time match, but Ben Shelton has the game and personality to really get the crowd behind him and the experience of playing in the Australian Open Quarter Final has to benefit him. The results on the hard courts between the first and last Grand Slam of the season have been far from solid though and so the run here at the US Open has been really surprising, although the draw has perhaps not been the worst either.
In saying that, Ben Shelton's win over Tommy Paul has to be respected as he recovered from a slow start to win in four sets. The serve is clearly a huge weapon for the younger American in this match and Shelton had the fastest serve in the tournament in that win over Paul, but he is going to need a few more big opening shots to try and put the pressure on Frances Tiafoe.
Last year's Semi Finalist has also been serving effectively in the tournament, although his shot is not nearly as flashy as the huge strokes Ben Shelton will send down the court. Frances Tiafoe will want to stay more focused than he was in the third set in the Fourth Round when he dropped serve twice in a row, but overall his numbers have been very strong behind serve at the US Open and on the hard courts in general over the calendar year.
Of course Ben Shelton's lefty haymaker means he holds plenty of his service games too, but it is Frances Tiafoe who looks to have a slight edge on the return and that can be key to the outcome of the match.
You cannot dismiss Ben Shelton's chances simply as he could serve his way into tie-breakers and the margins are much tighter in those where one or two solid returns could lead to a set in the youngster's favour. He also has been returning well in this tournament, far better than what he has largely produced on the hard courts in 2023, and that makes Ben Shelton a threat to Frances Tiafoe and his hopes of making it back to back Semi Final appearances in New York City.
However, the overriding feeling is that Frances Tiafoe is returning effectively too and the experience edge could be crucial at the key moments in what is expected to be a match played in a wonderful atmosphere. It would not be a surprise at all if Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe both are able to win a set, but the lean is with the latter to come through and cover the set handicap in this Quarter Final encounter.
Novak Djokovic to win 3-0 v Taylor Fritz: A two year absence from playing in the North American hard court events came to an end in Cincinnati in August and Novak Djokovic is clearly very comfortable on his return to the United States. He won the title in Cincinnati and, barring the Third Round near disaster, Novak Djokovic has largely looked very strong at the tournament as he looks to win a twenty-fourth Grand Slam title.
He has already secured a return to World Number 1 in the Rankings, but Djokovic is very much about winning as many Grand Slams as possible these days rather than concerning himself with Rankings.
Losing the Wimbledon Final means the calendar Grand Slam cannot be achieved, but it might also have been a match that inspires more out of Novak Djokovic and he has won all nine matches played since that defeat to Carlos Alcaraz. In those matches, Djokovic has dropped just three sets and two of those were against Laslo Djere in the Third Round as he had to fight back from 2-0 down to beat his compatriot.
Things were much smoother for Novak Djokovic in the Fourth Round and that is ideal ahead of a tough Quarter Final against American Taylor Fritz who is enjoying his best US Open run. This is only the second Grand Slam Quarter Final in which Fritz will compete, but he will have confidence from the fact that he has won all four matches in the US Open in straight sets.
Taylor Fritz will understand that he has had an almost perfect draw to reach the Quarter Final and that the standard of opponent is going to move up massively in this one. The highest Ranked opponent he has beaten in this run is World Number 74, while Taylor Fritz has also had wins over three players Ranked outside the top 100 with two of those being out of the top 200.
He has done what would have been expected of him, but Taylor Fritz now has to face an opponent who has won all seven previous matches between the two including a thumping win at Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago. On that day Novak Djokovic dropped just four games and managed to break the Taylor Fritz serve five times, while it also should be noted that Fritz is just 1-4 in his last five hard court matches against players Ranked inside the top 20.
Compare that to Novak Djokovic who is 8-1 in hard court matches against top 20 Ranked opponents in 2023 and who beat three of those opponents on his way to winning the Cincinnati Masters title ahead of the US Open.
Novak Djokovic has also been dealt a relatively kind hand with the draw, but the win in the Third Round is important in the manner it has come. It should mean he is a bit more tested than Taylor Fritz and that can really aid Djokovic in dealing with the crowd and the heavy shots coming from the other side of the net.
The Number 2 Seed in the draw has beaten Taylor Fritz in straight sets in six of their seven meetings, including in three of four on the hard courts. Fans of the home player will point out the exception was at the Australian Open when Taylor Fritz had Novak Djokovic in all sorts of trouble having rallied from two sets down and looking the stronger player in that Fourth Round clash in February 2021.
However, the overall numbers do not make good reading for Fritz who has held just 69% of service games played against Novak Djokovic on the hard courts and broken in 16% of return games.
In Cincinnati Novak Djokovic dominated behind serve and had Taylor Fritz under constant pressure on the return and it feels like the American is going to have to have a very special serving day to even get a set on the board in this match.
The Serb has been serving efficiently in the tournament so far and Novak Djokovic has a clear edge when it comes to the return, especially when the players have faced some of the stronger players on the Tour. Taylor Fritz is breaking in 15% of return games against top 20 Ranked players on the hard courts in 2023 compared with Novak Djokovic's 24% mark and the feeling is that the former Champion will have just a bit too much at key moments in a straight sets win.
Karolina Muchova - 2.5 games v Sorana Cirstea: With the top Seed exiting the US Open in the Fourth Round, all four players in the top half of the draw have to believe that they can make the Final of the event later in the week.
This would certainly have been the aim of Karolina Muchova at the start of the tournament having reached the French Open Final in June and having had a strong summer on the hard courts. She worked her way through to the Canadian Masters Fourth Round and then reached the Final in Cincinnati with only Iga Swiatek and Coco Gauff proving too hot to handle and Muchova has calmly made her way through to another Quarter Final.
There will be some surprise as to who the opponent across the net is after Sorana Cirstea upset Elena Rybakina and Belinda Bencic in back to back matches to make her first Quarter Final at Grand Slam level since the French Open in 2009. That was in her sixth ever Grand Slam tournament, but Sorana Cirstea has never really backed that up having reached the Fourth Round at best (three times) in her last fifty-two Grand Slam appearances.
The Romanian may feel she has nothing to lose at 33 years old, and Sorana Cirstea is a player that has the tennis to upset anyone on any given day. She reached the Miami Masters Semi Final in March but has remained an inconsistent force on the Tour and her overall hard court numbers this season are a little better than average, but also nothing to write home about.
Her form in the summer tournaments leading up to the US Open also showed no indication that Cirstea was about to embark on a run to match her previous best Grand Slam effort, while she had never been past the Third Round at the US Open previously.
All of this makes her dangerous and Cirstea has been returning well in her upset wins over Rybakina and Bencic. She is going to need more of the same to beat Karolina Muchova who has an under-rated serve and who is capable of getting to the net and playing a brand of tennis that puts her opponents on the back foot.
Karolina Muchova did drop serve six times in her Fourth Round win, but had only given it up three times in her previous three matches in the tournament. Over the course of the calendar year, Muchova has really looked after her serve efficiently and the numbers get that little bit stronger when ignoring matches against top 20 opponents on the surface.
The expectation has to be that Sorana Cirstea will challenge the Karolina Muchova serve, but the latter is also expected to have a lot of joy on the return. In the last Round, Belinda Bencic was able to get into the return games and Muchova has been quietly getting on with her business on the return.
The Czech player has won two of the three hard court matches between these players in 2023, although the Sorana Cirstea win in Miami was in a tournament where she had picked up momentum, like she has at the US Open. You have to respect what Cirstea is able to bring to the court, but Karolina Muchova has had the better of the Break Points created in the three matches and you have to believe that a serving day up to the standards she has set for the season would make it very difficult for the underdog to earn the upset.
Pressure can do a funny thing and both will know there is a big opportunity in front of them- thinking too far ahead can be dangerous in any match, but the feeling is that Karolina Muchova's overall game is a bit more steady than Sorana Cirstea's and that will show up in a tough win for the French Open Runner Up.
MY PICKS: Frances Tiafoe - 1.5 Sets @ 1.83 Paddy Power (2 Units)
Novak Djokovic to Win 3-0 @ 2.10 Bet Victor (2 Units)
Karolina Muchova - 2.5 Games @ 1.85 Coral (2 Units)
US Open Update: 31-32, - 13.60 Units (126 Units Staked, - 10.79% Yield)
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