One for all: Pavlyuchenkova beat Gracheva and advanced to the fourth round of the US Open, Karatsev lost to the 99th racket of the world

Pavlyuchenkova's victory in the Russian duel

In the US Open women's tournament, one of the 16 participants in the fourth round was to be a Russian tennis player.

Who exactly it will be was decided in a duel between the 15th racket of the world Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Varvara Gracheva, who occupies 82nd place in the WTA ranking.

There was no sensation in this match - the more experienced Pavlyuchenkova won two sets and made her way into the second week of the competition.

In the past, the two Russians met each other only at the Kremlin Cup in 2019, and then Gracheva managed to give a fight to her opponent, forcing her to play a long three-set match.

Taking into account the fact that the 21-year-old tennis player has more than once beaten seeded rivals at the US Open, she probably hoped to create as many problems as possible for Pavlyuchenkova.

However, already in the course of the first set, it became clear that these plans were not destined to come true. Pavlyuchenkova immediately took the lead with a score of 4: 0, taking the opponent's serve twice. In the fifth game, the 30-year-old tennis player earned two more break points, but Gracheva still played them and printed her score. True, this could no longer help save the party. The Olympic champion in mixed doubles gave up only seven points on her serve and quickly finished the set in her favor with another, already third, break.

In the second game, everything almost changed. Gracheva pulled herself together and played much more reliably, while Pavlyuchenkova increasingly began to slip unforced errors. If in the first set the 15th racket of the world allowed them only seven times, then in the second their number increased almost threefold - to 20. This immediately affected the mood of the 30-year-old tennis player - she seemed to have a barrier that prevented her from realizing break points. Pavlyuchenkova nine times was one step away from winning the game on the serve of an opponent, but Gracheva kept saving herself all the time.

If the 21-year-old tennis player had a little more experience, she would have taken advantage of this situation and tried to transfer the match to the third set, but Pavlyuchenkova still did not give up.

In the tenth game, after another unsuccessful attempt, she realized the second matchball and reached the 1/8 finals.

Pavlyuchenkova did not go so far at the US Open for ten years - in 2011 she played in the quarterfinals, and since then has not won more than two matches in the tournament.

The next opponent of the Russian tennis player will be Czech Karolina Plishkova.

Of the eight meetings between them, the fourth racket of the world won six, but in the last two cases it was Pavlyuchenkova who turned out to be stronger.

The illogical defeat of Karatsev

In the men's grid, as many Russians reached the fourth round as in the women's.

Aslan Karatsev had a chance to join Daniil Medvedev, but on his 28th birthday he was unexpectedly defeated by the 99th world racket Jenson Brooksby, who received a wild card from the organizers.

Karatsev and Brooksby have already met this year in the first round of Roland Garros, and then the Russian did not experience any particular problems, having won in three sets.

Since then, a lot has changed in the career of the 20-year-old American - he first made his way to the main draw of the ATP tournament and immediately reached the final in Newport, and then ended up in the semifinals in Washington.

A new meeting between the two tennis players began with a break by Karatsev, but then the Russian seemed to be replaced. He stopped holding his serve, which led to a barrage of unforced errors. Brooksby did not show anything outstanding and recorded only one actively won rally, but left the first set for himself. Of his 29 points, 16 were “donated” by Karatsev.

In the second and third sets, the 25th racket of the world managed to calm down and show her best qualities. He took the opponent's serve six times and ended up in the same game from the meeting with Novak Djokovic in the fourth round. But then the Russians began to be haunted by failures again. Although he actively won 16 rallies in the fourth set, he did not have a single break point anymore. Brooksby, on the other hand, showed prohibitive quality tennis and made only one unforced error for the entire game, while Karatsev had 14.

The decisive set turned out to be as paradoxical as the previous one. Although Karatsev was much stronger than Brooksby in individual rallies, all his efforts were canceled out due to his own mistakes. It was enough for the American tennis player to simply watch from the sidelines as his account was rapidly replenished thanks to the Russian. Karatsev actively won 58 draws per match, but still suffered a defeat that he hardly deserved. Brooksby also became the youngest American to make it to the 1/8 finals of the US Open after Andy Roddick in 2002.