Carlos Alcaraz Dominates US Open Quarter-Finals
Carlos Alcaraz is starting to make New York feel like his private laboratory for greatness.
Under the lights and under pressure, the 23-year-old Spaniard dismantled Tommy Paul 6-4 6-3 6-4 to reach the US Open quarter-finals, and did it with the kind of cold precision that makes record books feel inevitable rather than ambitious.
This is a player supposedly coming off a four-and-a-half-month lay-off with a wrist injury. You would not have known. Not from the way he ripped through rallies. Not from the way he erased danger. Not from the way he walked off Arthur Ashe Stadium in just two hours and 21 minutes, having shrugged off two set points with forehand winners that sounded like exclamation marks.
Alcaraz chases a unique slice of history
Alcaraz is already the youngest man ever to complete the career Grand Slam. That alone would be enough to define most careers. He is not finished.
If he retains his title at Flushing Meadows next Sunday, he will become the only man in the Open Era to successfully defend major crowns on all three surfaces: Wimbledon’s grass, Roland Garros clay, and now the hard courts of New York. He has already gone back-to-back at Wimbledon in 2023 and 2024, and at the French Open in 2023 and 2024. The hard-court chapter is the missing piece.
He is writing it quickly.
Paul, the 20th seed, arrived talking up his chances, insisting he always backs himself against the sport’s elite. The American had reason to believe: his all-court game, his willingness to take the ball early, his comfort on this surface. None of it shifted Alcaraz.
The head-to-head now reads like a mismatch. Six straight wins for Alcaraz. Fourteen consecutive sets. When the match tightened late in the third and Paul finally carved out two set points, Alcaraz simply raised the temperature. Two ferocious forehands, two set points gone, resistance broken.
“I played my game. I tried to put my style on today’s match,” he said afterwards, as if his style were something modest. “Tommy is such a talented player and his shots are dangerous and hard to control, so I just tried to be ready for the battle, ready to run if it mattered.
“I tried to be aggressive all the time and tried not to let him stay on the court. I put so much pressure on the return game. It helped a lot to play relaxed, calm and to think clearly.
“I’m really happy with the performance today. Am I back to full power? I think so. I play well every time I come here, and I just try to enjoy it. It doesn’t matter I was out for four-and-a-half months; every time I come here I play my best.”
The evidence backs him up. The forehand, in particular, is becoming a New York spectacle in its own right.
Sky Sports Tennis analyst Tim Henman did not hold back: “It’s a pleasure to watch Alcaraz go through the gears. He’s just got better and better as this tournament has gone on. Tommy Paul gave it everything he had but, at the end of the day, Alcaraz was different class.
“The forehand was firing. I’ve seen plenty of good forehands over the years, but I think Alcaraz’s might be the best. It’s unbelievable how he hits it so hard and doesn’t look like missing.”
Martina Navratilova went even further. “It’s really crazy he got this good this fast,” she said on Sky Sports Tennis. “Normally, when people have that many options to their game, it takes a while to figure out how to play the game. But not Carlos, he’s just in another stratosphere.”
On this evidence, the rest of the men’s draw will need more than belief. They will need a way to drag him back down to earth.
Sabalenka survives a wild one
If Alcaraz offered clean lines and control, Aryna Sabalenka delivered chaos, noise and survival.
The defending US Open champion and world No 1 beat Taylor Townsend 6-4 6-3 in a match that veered between brilliance and baffling lapses, featuring 11 breaks of serve in 19 games on Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Sabalenka has now spent 99 weeks at the top of the rankings. To make it 100, the equation is simple but unforgiving: she must win a third straight US Open title, and current world No 2 Elena Rybakina must fall before the semi-finals. The stakes showed in her tennis.
She trailed by a break in the second set against a fired-up Townsend, who fed off the crowd and attacked the net whenever she could. Sabalenka looked briefly rattled. Then the switch flipped.
“I was like ‘okay, you are down the break, just try to return the serve and put as much pressure on her as possible’,” she said. “I was just trying to stay focused on myself, not only point by point but ball by ball. I’m happy I was able to turn around the second set, I think it was a key moment.”
The numbers underlined the strange rhythm. Townsend actually finished with more winners, but Sabalenka’s returning and passing shots repeatedly punished the American’s forays forward. Every time Townsend tried to storm the net, Sabalenka’s groundstrokes met her with interest.
Navratilova’s verdict reflected that balance. “It was good enough. It was pretty solid,” she said. “Townsend had more winners but Aryna did really well returning serve and with passing shots.
“Townsend tried to come into the net more, but she wasn’t successful there, that’s how well Sabalenka played from the baseline. Overall, I would give Sabalenka a ‘B’ because she lost her serve so many times, but she played really well when it mattered.”
That last line is the essence of a champion’s defence. When it mattered, she found a way.
Annabel Croft saw something else: a performer who understands the stage. “There was a lot of ferocious intensity to what Sabalenka brought onto this court,” she said on Sky Sports Tennis. “When she went a break down in the second set, she really galvanised herself. When she got back on track, she let out the most enormous shriek and you just knew she meant business.
“The passion, the aura, the mentality, the personality, she brings so much to every court. She’s a great showwoman and puts on a show whenever she plays tennis. She understands this isn’t just sport, it’s entertainment as well.
“She is going to take some beating. She doesn’t look as vulnerable as I was expecting. So far, she hasn’t dropped a set and looks in very good shape.”
Her next test will come from the Wimbledon champion.
Noskova wins a thriller to set up Sabalenka clash
Linda Noskova booked that quarter-final with Sabalenka the hard way, edging a gripping contest against Marta Kostyuk 7-5 5-7 6-4 in a rematch of their Wimbledon semi-final.
This time, the Czech had to ride out a storm. Kostyuk refused to go quietly, saving five match points – two at the end of the second set and three more in the decider – before Noskova finally closed the door.
It was a match that swung wildly, a tug-of-war of momentum and nerve. Noskova’s composure on the fifth match point told its own story. She has already proved she can handle the Wimbledon stage. Now she walks into Sabalenka’s New York arena, with a place in the last four on the line.
Alcaraz hunting history. Sabalenka chasing a century at No 1 and a third straight crown. Noskova pushing into the spotlight. The second week at Flushing Meadows is starting to feel like a proving ground for serial winners – and those desperate to join them.
