{"id":65277,"date":"2026-09-04T09:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T09:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/65277\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T09:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T09:18:08","slug":"carlos-alcaraz-and-aryna-sabalenka-impress-in-us-open-second-round-but-katie-boulter-beaten-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/65277\/","title":{"rendered":"Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka impress in US Open second round but Katie Boulter beaten"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> took another solid step in his comeback from injury while fellow defending champion Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> also advanced at the US Open on Wednesday, as organisers heaved a sigh of relief after clearing a backlog of rain-delayed matches.<\/p>\n

Former winner Daniil Medvedev<\/a> weathered an avian interruption to soar into the next round, with Americans Ben Shelton, Jessica Pegula<\/a>, Emma Navarro and Frances Tiafoe all progressing. <\/p>\n

Alcaraz took centre stage in the evening session on Arthur Ashe Stadium<\/a>, where the Spanish second seed dropped the opening set before blowing away Jaime Faria 4-6 6-0 6-3 6-2 with superb shot-making to ease any lingering fears about his wrist injury.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to be quick … I’m not going to lie,” Alcaraz said after spending two hours and 40 minutes on court. <\/p>\n

\"CarlosCarlos Alcaraz is pleased with his second round victory over Jaime Faria despite losing the opening set (Reuters)<\/p>\n

“But at the end I realised \u2060that I’m just playing four sets, it was really good for me to \u200btest \u2060everything physically, to test my body, how I feel, and tomorrow how I’m going to feel after this match, after four sets.”<\/p>\n

Sabalenka was even more impressive a short while earlier on the main showcourt, as the Belarusian crushed Russian qualifier Polina Iatcenko 6-1 6-1, before bristling at a question about her appearances at pre-tournament events. <\/p>\n

“You guys are, like, a joke. Parties, fun … like, why would \u200byou even say \u2060that? Why would you even think about that? What \u200ckind of question is that?” the world number one said.<\/p>\n

“Just because I posted, like, some activities with brands, and you think that I’ve been partying, not training?”<\/p>\n

Earlier, third-ranked Pegula needed just 56 minutes to dismantle 2020 Australian Open winner Sofia Kenin 6-3 6-1 in the first match at Arthur Ashe Stadium to book a match-up with 2021 runner-up Leylah Fernandez. <\/p>\n

“To be out of there in under an hour, it doesn’t always happen. So I think I’m just going to take that one and run,” said Pegula, the runner-up in 2024.<\/p>\n

Eighth seed Shelton had a more difficult time, beating Poland’s Hubert Hurkacz 6-3 5-7 7-6(3) 7-5, as he relied on the energy of the home crowd to power through. The Montreal winner has emerged as one of the best hopes of ending a 23-year US men’s major drought in a diminished field missing injured world number one Jannik Sinner.<\/p>\n

\"ArynaAryna Sabalenka swept past Russia’s Polina Iatcenko in straight sets (Reuters)<\/p>\n

Navarro took down fellow American Caty McNally 3-6 6-2 6-3 and Tiafoe beat Rei Sakamoto 6-3 7-6(2) 7-5, but it was not all good news for the home hopes as 2017 champion Sloane Stephens suffered a 6-1 7-5 defeat by 11th seed Marta Kostyuk. <\/p>\n

Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova eased to a 6-4 6-2 win over Thailand’s Lanlana Tararudee in her bid for a second consecutive Grand Slam title, while \u200crunner-up Karolina Muchova outclassed Katie Boulter 6-1 6-0.<\/p>\n

There was no stopping lucky loser Bu Yunchaokete from reaching the second round, however, as he delivered a stunning win over 12th seed Rafael Jodar. Alex Michelsen delivered another jolt to a fancied player \u2060as he upset fellow American and 16th seed Brandon Nakashima 6-3 6-4 6-4 in the second round, while Australian sixth seed Alex de Minaur eased through his opening match against \u200cItalian qualifier Andrea Guerrieri 6-2 6-2 6-4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[24925,271,50,28,10448],"class_list":["post-65277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carlos-alcaraz","tag-20260902-231601","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-top-picture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}