Kambek Karatseva with 0: 2, sensation from Gracheva and victory of Pavlyuchenkova: three more Russians made it to the 1/16 finals of the US Open

The incredible rescue of Karatsev

The main hero of the fourth day of the US Open was undoubtedly Aslan Karatsev.

The 21st seeded tennis player had an incredible duel with Australian Jordan Thompson.

The Russian lost in the first two sets with the same score 3: 6 and twice found himself one step away from relegation in the second round, but eventually won and for the first time in his career reached the 1/16 finals.

Since Karatsev sensationally reached the semifinals of the Australian Open and established himself in the elite of men's tennis, he has not achieved significant success in Grand Slam tournaments.

Since mid-May, he has not managed to win more than two matches in a singles tournament at all.

With the start of the American series of tournaments, Karatsev suffered two defeats in a row in the first round and could hardly be considered a contender for the second week of the US Open.

Nothing boded well and the start of the match with Thompson, who was 34 lines behind Karatsev in the ATP ranking. The Russian failed to make a break, although he had two chances, after which he gave the serve, and with it the entire first set. After that, Aslan took a toilet break, which provoked another scandal at the US Open - Thompson complained to the judge that the opponent made him wait for nine whole minutes. Such a short rest did not help the Russian. Karatsev won only three points in the next three games and began to concede 0: 2 in sets

But, as the 25th number of the world rating later admitted, at that moment he still understood how to resist the vis-a-vis. An equal struggle finally ensued between them, and at the decisive moments it was Karatsev who turned out to be better. He won the third set, taking the opponent's serve three times, the key of which was in the 11th game, and in the fourth he almost stopped making mistakes on his serve. Thompson did this even less often, but in a tie-break that lasted 18 minutes, he did not realize both match points and, with a score of 10: 9 in favor of the Russian, sent the ball to the wrong place.

In the fifth installment, the Australian no longer offered resistance.

Karatsev immediately made two breaks and almost won the set dry.

For the second time in his career, he escaped with a score of 0: 2 at the Grand Slam tournaments.

The next opponent of the Russian will be American Jenson Brooksby, who plays at the tournament at the invitation of the organizers.

He ranks 99th in the world rankings and beat compatriot Taylor Fritz in the second round match.

Victory deja vu Gracheva

In the women's tournament, the representative of Russia also became the heroine of the day.

Varvara Gracheva repeated her last year's result and again reached the third round of the US Open.

Ranked 82 in the world rankings, the athlete defeated Spaniard Paulo Badosa in two sets with a score of 6: 4, 6: 4.

Last year, the tennis players' paths have already crossed on the Flushing Meadows courts, when both of them were at the turn of the first and second hundred of the WTA rankings. Since then, Badosa has made significant progress - reaching the Roland Garros quarterfinals, playing in the final of the Premier home tournament in Madrid and winning the title in Belgrade. The Spaniard even got the 24th seed at the US Open. The 21-year-old Russian woman did not have such success, except that just before the start of the Major, she reached the semifinals of the tournament in Cleveland.

But over the past year, Badosa never found a recipe for victories over Gracheva.

The Russian woman in both parties acted according to the same scheme - she started with an early break, then she gave up her serve, but at the decisive moment she again came out ahead.

The 82nd racket of the world was better both in actively won rallies (20:16) and in unforced errors (18:20), and still did not allow herself to make double mistakes, of which Badosa had already accumulated six.

Gracheva has already climbed seven places in the WTA rankings, and in the event of another victory, she will be able to debut in the top 60.

The difficult path of Pavlyuchenkova

True, the first racket of Russia Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova will try to prevent this.

She became the next rival of Gracheva after defeating the Slovakian Anna Shmidlova with a score of 6: 2, 5: 7, 6: 2.

Thanks to this, a Russian tennis player will play in the fourth round of the US Open for the first time since Maria Sharapova.

Pavlyuchenkova had to suffer in a difficult duel with the winner of the qualification.

If at first the difference in class between the 15th and 93rd rackets of the world was obvious, then in the second set Shmidlova gave a fight to a Russian woman, who, in addition, started having problems with serving.

It was enough for the Olympic champion in mixed doubles to win one game with a score of 5: 4 to end the match, but the Slovak made a break and then took two more games.

Fortunately, the former 26th racket of the world was not enough for more.

In the third game, Shmidlova was already noticeably inferior in quality of play and did not realize any of her four break points.

Pavlyuchenkova, who missed the US Open last season, reached the third round of the tournament for the first time in five years.

Thanks to this, the 30-year-old Russian woman has every chance to return to the highest for herself 13th line in the WTA ranking according to the results of the competition.

Another Russian tennis player who took to the court on Thursday was Lyudmila Samsonova.

But she failed to become the fifth representative of her country in the 1/16 finals.

She lost in two sets to Belgian Gret Minnen, who is not in the first hundred of the world rankings and got to the US Open thanks to the refusal of the Latvian Elena Ostapenko.