The Athletic has live coverage of the U.S. Open 2025.

Welcome to the U.S. Open briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.

On day nine, a prestigious tennis nation took over the women’s quarterfinals, two players created a generational matchup and one of the best players in the world raised her floor again.

A merciless night session on Arthur Ashe Stadium

The U.S. Open loves its night sessions. Lights flash around the upper bowl while pop music blares out of the speakers. Fans load up on Honey Deuce cocktails. And the tennis goes on past midnight and sometimes deeper into the early hours, keeping everyone entertained at the sport’s equivalent of a nightclub.

Not when Jannik Sinner is playing, with revenge on his mind. The men’s world No. 1 and defending champion needed 81 minutes to rout mercurial Kazakh Alexander Bublik 6-1, 6-1, 6-1, prompting Bublik to ask Sinner “what the f—?” at the net. It was Sinner’s quickest Grand Slam victory and just one minute shy of the fastest at this year’s U.S. Open, behind 21st seed Tomáš Macháč’s win over Luca Nardi of Italy.

Bublik was the last player to beat Sinner not named Carlos Alcaraz and his victory over the Italian in Halle, Germany, ended a 49-match streak in which Sinner had not lost to anyone other than Alcaraz. Sinner did not give him an inch Monday night, which combined with Bublik’s serve going AWOL — and the fact that he had played in one of those late-night dances with Tommy Paul for three hours and 38 minutes less than two days prior — led to a match that was barely a contest.

Bublik had become part of a tennis chain-letter meme during the French Open after being hammered by Sinner in the quarterfinals there.

At the Italian Open in Rome, Sinner beat two-time French Open finalist Casper Ruud 6-0, 6-1 in barely an hour. Ruud posted on Instagram, under which America’s Taylor Fritz commented: “You almost had him.”

That started a trend among Sinner’s victims. A fan posted the line under Jiři Lehečka’s post from the French Open. Lehečka took almost an hour to win a game against Sinner.

Then Sinner beat Bublik, after which Bublik posted “I almost got him guys” under his post reflecting on the tournament. When he beat Sinner in Germany, he duly posted that he had got his man.

This time, he was reduced to just two letters under a post announcing Sinner’s win: “AI.” Sinner, in fact a human, reminded the world that Bublik was coming off a very late finish in his news conference. He did not put him through another one Monday night.

— James Hansen

The Czech Republic tennis machine purrs into life in New York

The vaunted Czech women’s tennis machine is at it again. No. 11 seed Karolína Muchová’s 6-3, 6-7(0), 6-3 win over No. 27 seed Marta Kostyuk Monday afternoon made it three Czech women in the U.S. Open final eight. Muchová, who has reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals three years in a row — making the semifinals the previous two times — takes a similar approach to what that means to the rest of her peers.

The Czech Republic has 11 million people. There’s a word for the number of quality tennis players that population produces – ridiculous — but its players are generally pretty blasé about how exactly Muchová, Markéta Vondroušová, Barbora Krejčíková and all the rest found their tennis footing at home. Vondroušová and Krejčíková gave the country back-to-back Wimbledon champions in 2023 and 2024.

“We are more one by one, honestly,” Muchová said. “We are all happy for each other and we talk and all that. Obviously, with Markéta, we are from the same club, so I know her a little better than Barbora. But with both of them, we just have a nice relationship, we support each other.”

Karolína Muchová reached her third consecutive U.S. Open quarterfinal by beating Marta Kostyuk. (Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)

Martina Navratilova, who defected from what was Czechoslovakia in 1975 but now has a warm relationship with her native country, has some thoughts

“It goes back to opportunity and the ability to get into a club and get good coaching without having to have wealthy parents,” she said during a recent interview. “You can play as much tennis as you want once you’re a member and the membership is minimal for kids. It’s even free, I think, in most places.”

The clubs are everywhere, even in small villages, she said.

Navratilova added something that brought to mind the artfulness with which Muchová, Vondroušová and Krejčíková approach the game. Young girls in Czech Republic play lots of sets from a young age, which she believes is different from American tennis academies, where kids do more drills.

“You hit all these ground strokes and you know don’t really develop as a tennis player as well as you could if you were coached differently,” she said. “The academies do crank out players but they don’t really teach them how to play the game properly.”

— Matt Futterman

A generational matchup

Two of the most talented players of their generation will battle for a place in the U.S. Open semifinals Wednesday.

Alex de Minaur, 26, and Felix Auger-Aliassime, 25, were both tipped to win majors as they rose through the ranks of men’s tennis. To date, they have had top-10 careers, won titles and fought with the very best, but have never looked close to winning a major. Monday, de Minaur beat Swiss qualifier Leandro Riedi 6-3, 6-2, 6-1, while Auger-Aliassime took down No. 15 seed Andrey Rublev 7-5, 6-3, 6-4.

De Minaur has been the more consistent, reaching six major quarterfinals compared to Auger-Aliassime’s four, but the Canadian has a Grand Slam semifinal on his CV, unlike his Australian opponent. He is also a Davis Cup champion.

Evaluating the wider significance of their quarterfinal once again confronts one of the most marketable but uncomfortable realities of men’s tennis right now: there is a coterie of players tussling for milestones of huge importance to them and of huge credit to their careers, but of less consequence at the sharpest end of proceedings.

De Minaur has reached the quarters of all four majors, getting to the last eight in five of the last seven, but has lost at that stage every time. Getting over that hump would be a huge deal for him. For Auger-Aliassime, after long periods in the tennis wilderness since climbing to a career-high ranking of No. 6 three years ago, even getting to this stage has been a monumental “remember me?” statement to the rest of the field.

The reality though is that whoever wins will be a massive underdog, unless Lorenzo Musetti does the improbable and takes out his compatriot and the defending champion Jannik Sinner. This leaves de Minaur, Auger-Aliassime and many players like them in a strange bind: they are scrapping hard to be the best of the rest and to maximize their talent, but there is a wall at the very top of the sport to which they have dedicated their lives.

Whatever happens, having the careers these two have had up until this point is still a heck of an achievement.

— Charlie Eccleshare

The myth of Iga Swiatek’s down season

Iga Świątek served another reminder Monday of how high her floor has become. In thrashing No. 13 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3, 6-1, she reached all four Grand Slam quarterfinals in one season for the first time.

This is remarkable for a number of reasons. At her peak, Świątek was even more dominant than current world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, spending 125 weeks at the top of the world rankings. She is a U.S. Open champion who has won seven WTA 1000 titles on hard courts. But she previously did not bring that prowess to the hard-court majors on a consistent basis.

More remarkable is the fact that not so long ago, 2025 had developed an aura of disappointment in the tennis commentariat after one-sided losses on clay, her favorite surface, and thwarted title defenses in five different tournaments. As is clear from those numbers, that disappointment came from incredibly high standards that she set, rather than genuinely poor results.

Iga Świątek’s season has been an exhibition of consistency at the four Grand Slams. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)

Before this year’s Wimbledon, she had not made a final since the 2024 French Open, despite reaching the quarterfinals or the semifinals in eight of her nine tournaments played. Then she won Wimbledon and the Cincinnati Open, and now she is back in the quarterfinals in New York.

Another title here would take her back to a position where her ceiling is higher than anyone else’s. But whatever happens the rest of the week, she’s raised her floor higher than it’s ever been.

— Charlie Eccleshare

Other notable results on Day 9:

  • Naomi Osaka (23) produced a single-minded tactical masterclass to knock out home favorite Coco Gauff (3) 6-3, 6-2.
  • Lorenzo Musetti (10) won a battle between two eye-catching players who are not entirely comfortable on hard courts. He beat Jaume Munar of Spain to reach his third Grand Slam quarterfinal of the year, but a first on hard courts, 6-3, 6-0, 6-1.
  • Amanda Anisimova (8) routed Beatriz Haddad Maia (18) 6-0, 6-3 to set up a rematch of her Wimbledon final against Świątek, which Świątek won 6-0, 6-0.
  • Venus Williams and Leylah Fernandez advanced to the women’s doubles quarterfinals, where they will take on Taylor Townsend and Kateřina Siniaková (1)

Shot of the day

Świątek makes a beautiful angled volley on her backhand, and finds time for a stylish spin, too.

Up next: Quarterfinals

🎾 Jessica Pegula (4) vs. Barbora Krejčíková

11:30 a.m. ET on ESPN

Pegula, last year’s U.S. Open finalist, knows that she is in for a match against two-time Grand Slam champion Krejčíková. In her news conference after beating Ann Li, Pegula said that the Czech has “these stretches where she’ll just reel off multiple games and then she kind of goes down”. If that sounds like opportunity, it’s not, and Pegula knows it.

“I think that’s when she’s her most dangerous because I saw she was down 3-0 the other night. I looked at the score and that means absolutely nothing with Barbora because I know that she can just string winners off left and right.” Krejčíková, who saved eight match points with bravery against Taylor Townsend to meet Pegula, is in that mood.

🎾 Jiří Lehečka (20) vs. Carlos Alcaraz (2)

1:30 p.m. ET (estimated) on ESPN

Lehečka knows how to beat Alcaraz and he’s done it this year, playing at close to his peak all match to upset the Spaniard in Doha, Qatar. But that match also needed Alcaraz to have one of his in-play dips and that volatility has not appeared at the U.S. Open yet. Moreover, a cloud of inconsistency hangs over Alcaraz’s perception in the wider tennis world because his main rival, Jannik Sinner, is so metronomic. In reality, he is 33-1 in his last 34 matches and has reached seven finals in a row.

🎾 Aryna Sabalenka (1) vs. Markéta Vondroušová

7 p.m. ET on ESPN

Defending champion Sabalenka always had a tough assignment at this stage, with either Vondroušová, the 2023 Wimbledon champion, or Elena Rybakina, who won it the previous year, in her path. At face value — and given how Rybakina rolled her over at the Cincinnati Open — Vondroušová appears the favorable matchup but the way the Czech beat Rybakina to get here suggests otherwise. Vondroušová didn’t just use her trigonometric mastery of the court and her feel — she overpowered Rybakina and out-served her too. If she can join those two poles against Sabalenka, expect a thriller.

🎾 Novak Djokovic (7) vs. Taylor Fritz (4)

9 p.m. (estimated) ET on ESPN

To get it out of the way early: Fritz is 0-10 against Djokovic. He is in a difficult spot because the way to beat Djokovic these days is to wear him down, but the shortcomings Fritz has had against him in the past relate to not being aggressive enough with changes of direction and moves forward. But a night session at his home Grand Slam against a Djokovic who has played brilliant tennis, but also looked physically compromised at points in all this matches, might be his best chance yet.

U.S. Open men’s draw 2025U.S. Open women’s draw 2025

Tell us what you noticed on the ninth day…

(Top photo of Jannik Sinner: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic)