Defending champion records 6-3 6-4 success to set up meeting with 15th seed Elise Mertens
Friday 31 August 2018 21:29, UK
Sloane Stephens extended her winning run at Flushing Meadows to 10 matches as the defending US Open champion beat former finalist Victoria Azarenka to reach the last 16.
The American thrilled the New York crowd last year by defeating compatriot Madison Keys 6-3 6-0 to claim an unexpected maiden major success - when ranked 83rd in the world and after a few months back following an 11-month foot injury lay-off.
The following 12 months have been a lot kinder to Stephens than the 12 that preceded last year's success as she has reached a second Grand Slam final, losing to Simona Halep in Paris and won her first WTA Premier event with a victory over Jelena Ostapenko in Miami.
She has entered this year's US Open as the third seed and with Halep and Caroline Wozniacki stunned early on at Flushing Meadows, the world No 3 is now the highest ranked player left in the tournament.
Stephens eased past Evgeniya Rodina in the first round but had to battle back from a set down to beat Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina in the second round and former world no 1 Azarenka offered a different challenge.
As an unseeded two-time Grand Slam champion, playing on a wild card, the Belarusian may well have harboured hopes of a Stephens-esque run to the final from her lowly ranking, but Stephens was quick to assert her authority and looked every inch the defending champion in dealing with Azarenka's threat to record a straight-sets triumph
Stephens broke serve early in the first set and added a second to love to seal the opening stanza before being made to work a lot harder in the second set which was interrupted by rain showers that forced the roof to be closed - a far cry from the searing temperatures of earlier in the week.
Azarenka landed an early break of her own to move 3-1 in front, but that set the tone for a run of three further breaks as Stephens stuck to her task. With the set looking like it may go the distance it was the American who struck, leading 5-4 she broke her opponent once again to seal victory.
"I just hung in there, battled as hard as I could, ran down every ball," said Stephens.
"I was playing a former Grand Slam champion, she raised her level and I just had to stay in it and I did that very well,"
Up next for Stephens is 15th seed Elise Mertens who has won three times on the WTA Tour and is growing in stature.
The Belgian reached her first Grand Slam semi-final in Australia earlier this year but prior to this week had suffered first-round defeats on both previous visits to the final Grand Slam of the year.
Mertens proved too strong for Czech 23rd seed Barbora Strycova, running out a 6-3 7-6 victor to keep her run going.
The winner of the Stephens-Mertens contest will face either Elina Svitolina or Anastasija Sevastova in the quarter-finals after the pair came through their own third-round matches on Friday.
World No 7 Svitolina has never gone beyond the quarter-finals of a Grand Slam, a feat she achieved in Melbourne earlier this year where she was eventually halted by Mertens.
The Ukrainian beat Qiang Wang 6-4 6-4 to advance to her showdown with 19th seed Sevastova who tends to save her best performances for the US Open.
The Latvian reached the last eight in New York in each of the last two years and was beaten by Stephens on the American's fairytale run in 2017. She remained on course for a possible repeat meeting by battling back from a set down to beat Ekaterina Makarova 4-6 6-1 6-2.
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Tennis is back on Sky Sports screens with the Laver Cup in September while we will also have coverage of the ATP Finals in November with every match live on Sky Sports. But first, we will be across the final major of the year in New York as the US Open right through to the final with live blogs, reports, features and reaction.
