Is it just me or is the US Open flying by. The first half of quarter-finals have officially been played so we have half the ladies semi-finals set and half the men’s semi-finals set.

The first match of the day was between the 6th seed and home favourite, Gauff and the 20th seed who had knocked out the number 1 in the world, Swiatek in the previous round. My word was this just not Ostapenko’s night. I am not sure if she was tired from the previous rounds or if she was just not able to play at the level required on day 9 but her tennis was not great at all and the score did show that as Gauff cruised to a 6-0; 6-2 win over the Latvia to book her spot in semi-finals where she was going to play the winner of the Muchova and Cirstea match.

That match between the 10th seed Muchova and the 30th seed, Cirstea was the first match on in the night session and my word was it Muchova’s night. No matter what Cirstea threw at her, Muchova had all the answers and this meant that like Gauff did in the day session, Muchova also cruised to the semi-finals with a 6-0; 6-3 win over Cirstea. With that win Muchova is now the best lady pick with 34 points while Gauff is the 2nd bets pick so far on 33 points. These two ladies will now play for a spot in the US Open final.

The mens match which was played in the day session was between Fritz the 9th seed who had played a clean tournament when you look at the scores he had produced in the previous rounds, and Djokovic who besides his scare against fellow Serbian, Djere, had also had a pretty easy run to this quarter-final match and nothing changed for the Serbian as he beat Fritz in straight sets 6-1; 6-4; 6-4 to book his spot in yet another grand slam semi-final.

His opponent however was a bit of a surprise because his opponent will be Ben Shelton who notched up a huge win late at night against 10th seed, Tiafoe who always seems to go well at the US Open. Shelton who has been playing a powerful brand of tennis at this years US Open, continues to look good and with the 6-2; 3-6; 7-6(7); 6-2 over Tiafoe it will surely give him confidence against the Serbian legend Djokovic. However they will be playing for a spot in the grand final so lets just hope the 20 year old does not let the pressure and moment get to him and we get to watch a quality semi-final match.

Onto the fantasy leaderboard and ‘PhenomeNOnadal’ remains in the lead and extends their lead to 6 points over ‘Dropshots’ who remain in 2nd. ‘2nd’ sits just 2 points behind in 3rd and ‘Fudgies’ reenter the top 5 and now occupy what seems to be their favourite spot of 4th. ‘Hawks Hackers’ never had a good day as they dropped to 5th on day 9.

With the loss of Fritz, we have our first team eliminated and that team is ‘Talented Turtles’ and with that we have our new wooden spoon winner as well because they already are in last place. Congratulations!

Jared

Jared matriculated in 2020 from Wynberg Boys High School in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa. His passion for tennis afforded him the opportunity of travelling to Europe. He is a quizmaster and a fantasy organiser.