Serena serves double bagel
World number one Novak Djokovic raced into the US Open quarter-finals for the loss of just three games on Tuesday while defending champion Andy Murray was again involved in a four-set duel.
Top-ranked defending champion Serena Williams inflicted the most lopsided US Open women’s quarter-final defeat in 24 years on birthday-girl Carla Suarez Navarro to reach a semi-final against China’s Li Na.
Williams routed the 18th-seeded Spaniard 6-0, 6-0 in just 52 minutes on Tuesday, Suarez Navarro’s 25th birthday, to reach a matchup Friday with Li, the 2011 French Open champion who ousted Russian 24th seed Ekaterina Makarova.
Reigning French Open champion Williams, a 16-time Grand Slam winner seeking her fifth US Open crown and ninth title of the year, has dropped only 13 games in five wins on her way to the semis for a fifth US Open appearance in a row. Top seeded Djokovic, the 2011 champion, wrapped up a place in his 18th successive Grand Slam quarter-final when he crushed Spanish world number 43 Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-0, 6-0 in just 79 minutes.
Andy Murray, the third seed, reached the quarter-finals for a third successive year with a 6-7 (5/7), 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 win over Denis Istomin, the 64th-ranked Uzbek.
Djokovic will next tackle Russian 21st seed Mikhail Youzhny, a semi-finalist in 2006 and 2010, over whom he has an 5-3 career lead.
Youzhny carved out a four-hour, 6-3, 3-6, 6-7 (3/7), 6-4, 7-5 win over 2001 champion Lleyon Hewitt after trailing 4-1 in the fourth set and 5-2 in the fifth.
Swiss ninth seed Stanislas Wawrinka reached the last eight by eliminating Czech fifth seed Tomas Berdych, a semi-finalist last year, 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (8/6), 6-2.
Wawrinka will now face Murray for a place in the last four, trailing 8-5 in their series, although he did win their 2010 US Open third-round meeting.
Djokovic, bidding to make the final for a fourth successive year, hit 34 winners and faced just one break point against Granollers, one of four Spaniards in the last 16. But Granollers’ challenge had already been fatally undermined by having played three five-set matches and spending almost 10 hours on court, twice as long as Djokovic, who has yet to lose a set.
The 26-year-old Murray took his record in the majors this year to 17-1 with his second win of 2013 over Istomin after also seeing off the Uzbek player on his way to the Brisbane title in January.
Istomin, who has been coached by his mother Klaudiya since his junior days, sported a bright orange shirt for the encounter and he had Murray dazzled in the first set.
Paes, Stepanek in semis
India’s Leander Paes and his Czech partner Radek Stepanek, made the semi-finals beating Pakistan’s Aisam-ul Haq Qureshi and Netherlands’ Jean-Julien Rojer. Paes and Stepanek dropped the second set, but came back strongly to win 6-1, 6-7, 6-4 in the end. The pair reached the finals of the US Open last year. They would now face the Bryan brothers in the semi-finals who are also the top seeds.
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