Maria Sharapova suffers first US Open defeat at night as Carla Suarez Navarro reaches quarter-finals
Suarez Navarro will face American Madison Keys in the last-eight after handing Sharapova her first ever loss inside Arthur Ashe Stadium during the night session
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Your support makes all the difference.The respective heights of the 5ft 4in Carla Suarez Navarro and the 6ft 2in Maria Sharapova are a fair reflection of both their public profile and their places in the history of the game, but none of that counted for anything here on Monday at the US Open.
To the surprise of those who might judge players by their fame and reputation rather than by their current form and ability, Suarez Navarro beat Sharapova 6-4, 6-3 to secure a quarter-final meeting with Madison Keys.
The reality is that Suarez Navarro, the world No 24, is ranked only two places lower than 31-year-old Sharapova, who has five Grand Slam titles to her name but has not been the force she was since returning to competition last year after serving a 15-month suspension for a drugs offence.
What did run against form was the fact that Sharapova lost in a night match in Arthur Ashe Stadium. She had previously won 23 matches in a row under lights on the main show court at Flushing Meadows.
Sharapova had looked in good shape when she beat Jelena Ostapenko for the loss of only five games in the previous round, but the consistent Suarez Navarro, who was celebrating her 30th birthday, made the Russian pay for her 38 unforced errors and eight double faults.
On a day of stifling heat and humidity, the Spaniard was grateful that she had played at night. “I was lucky because during the day it was terrible,” she said after beating Sharapova for only the second time in their six meetings.
Suarez Navarro said she had tried to play aggressively and focus on her game. “Sometimes it’s difficult when you go on this amazing court for the first time,” she said. “With the crowd and the music playing it’s crazy. It's a really good show, but for the players sometimes it’s tough.”
She added: “Maria hits the ball hard and I had to run and fight. But I think I made a really complete match from the beginning until the end.”
Sharapova said she was disappointed by her failure to put a string of good performances together but insisted: “If I didn't have the belief to keep doing this and to keep having the motivation and the grind of doing this every day in order to get myself in these positions, I don't think I would be here.”
Asked if this was the most challenging period of her career, Sharapova said: “What's challenging is when you're a teenager and you have a few hundred dollars and you've got no sense of the future and you don't know where you're going to end up. You just have a dream. I think that's a lot tougher than being 31 years old and having the opportunity to do whatever I want in my life.”
Keys reached the quarter-finals with a crushing 6-1, 6-3 victory over Dominika Cibulkova, who has now lost to the American in all five of their meetings. Cibulkova had beaten Angelique Kerber, the Wimbledon champion, in the previous round, but had no answer to Keys’ big serves and ground strokes.
Kerber and Keys are the only two women to have reached the quarter-finals or better of three Grand Slam tournaments this year. Keys, who lost to Sloane Stephens in last year’s final, has been happy to see Serena Williams and others take much of the media attention here.
“It's nice to be under the radar,” Keys said. “Either way, I'm pretty used to it. This one just seems like it's a little bit more low-key. There is a bunch of big stories, obviously. Serena is back. Sloane is playing really well. There is just a lot going on this year.”
The other quarter-final in the bottom half of the draw will feature two players who have never gone this far at a Grand Slam tournament before. Naomi Osaka beat Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 in a big-hitting contest between two 20-year-olds and will now face Lesia Tsurenko, who outlasted Marketa Vondrousova in a gruelling marathon played during the hottest part of the afternoon.
On a day when the heat rule was again in operation, allowing the players to take a 10-minute break before the deciding set, both Tsurenko and Vondrousova laboured. Tsurenko, who was playing in the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament for the third time, won 6-7, 7-5, 6-2.
Vondrousova, who at 19 was the only teenager left in the draw, had her right thigh strapped and struggled with her movement.
Tsurenko, a 29-year-old Ukrainian ranked No 36 in the world, suffered dizziness and said afterwards that she had never felt worse on court and had been close to retiring. She took a medical time-out and had her temperature and blood pressure taken.
“I think it was some type of heat illness or something like that,” she said. “I've never felt so bad on court. This was something new for me. I usually handle any kind of weather without any problem. But today was one of the toughest matches in my life.
“The worst thing for me was that I could not control my body, so I started to make some easy mistakes. At some point I just thought that it was over for me for today, but at the beginning of the second set I could feel a breeze, a little wind, and it was cooler. Then I saw the shade and I thought: ‘OK, I will try. I will give myself some hope.’
“I think the good thing was that I decided to keep fighting. Then I was feeling better and better and I came back into the match.”
Osaka and Sabalenka, ranked No 19 and No 20 in the world respectively, are two of the game’s brightest prospects. Osaka has been making significant progress through the ranks in the last two years while Sabalenka has made her big breakthrough this summer.
Having dropped only seven games in her first three matches, Osaka was soon aware that she would be involved in a major fight this time. Sabalenka worked her way back into contention in the second set but faltered when she served at 4-5 in the decider. The Belarusian saved Osaka’s first three match points but double-faulted on the fourth.
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