Jannik Sinner beats Daniil Medvedev to reach US Open semis

Jan nicker beats denil Medvedev to reach us open semi's New York top ranked Jan nicker used an aggressive net rushing style to reach the US Open semi-finals For the First Time by getting past 2021 Champion denil Medvedev 6-2 1 to6 6 to1 6 to4 on Wednesday night sinner a 23-year-old from Italy who was cleared in a dop in case less than a week before the US Open started after testing positive twice for traces of an anabolic steroid in March will go up against number 25 Jack Draper of Britain on Friday for a birth in the title match Draper won the only match between the two at the 2021 Queens Club after week one exits by Novak jokovic and Carlos alcaras cner took over as the title favorite and now is the only man remaining in the field with a grand slam trophy he won his first at the Australian Open in January by beating Medvedev in the final in five sets after dropping the first two this matchup was unusually Topsy Turvy as they took turns dominating a set at a time first it was cner who was Superior then that role was played Medvedev the runner up at Flushing Meadows to jokovic last year and to rafhael Nadal in 2019 then sinner regained the upper hand in the third in the fourth from 3 to 3 sinner surged saving a pair of break points then breaking Medvedev to lead 5 to3 we know each other quite well we knew it was going to be very physical said sinner who lost to Medvedev in five sets at Wimbledon in July it was strange the first two sets because whoever made the first break then started to roll the key CER won the point on 28 of his 33 trips to the net including nine of 11 on ser and Vol approaches we tried to work really hard on this aspect of the game sinner said trying just to mix up the game Medvedev was particular particularly uneven he only had one fewer winner than CER but finished with 19 more unforced errors sometimes you feel like you're doing all good and then you miss and then you have question marks Etc meddev said maybe today I was going for a little bit more risky shots I was missing just a bit more as I said one moment I kind of got lost in my misses sinner is the third Italian man to reach us open semi-finals since the open era began in 196 8 joining curado baruti 1977 and Mato bartini 2019 he also became the fourth youngest man in the open era to reach the semi-finals at all four majors trailing only jokovic Nadal and Jim cier Medvedev fell to 9-2 in his career Major quarterfinals the only other loss being in the 2021 French Open to Stefanos CPUs his exit means no more former US Open Champions remain in the this year's draw Friday's other semi-final will be number 12 Taylor Fritz versus number 20 Francis TFO in the first All-American men's matchup at this stage at a major in 19 years Jessica pigula pulled off a major upset of J swotch at the US Open beating the number one ranked woman 6-2 6 to4 on Wednesday night to win a grand slam quarterfinal for the first time on her seventh try there have been so many freaking times and I just kept losing the Gul told the crowd I know everyone keeps asking me about it but I was like I don't know what else to do I just need to get there again and like win the match so thank God I was able to do it and finally finally I can say semi-finalist her win guarantees the US Open will feature multiple American men and women in the semi-final round the first time that has happened since 2003 Andre Agassi and Andy rodic Lindsay Davenport and Jennifer capriotti the number six seated pigula a 30-year-old American has won 14 of her past 15 matches and will make her debut appearance in the semi-finals of a slam on Thursday against unseated kolina machova of the Czech Republic both machova and Pula have yet to drop a set the first time that has been done by multiple women at this stage of the tournament since 2014 there were three that year Serena Williams ping schwai and a Catarina marova I know knows she has a lot of experience going deep in slams Pula said about machova whom she defeated at the Cincinnati open last month I'll worry about that maybe when I wake up in the morning the other women's match Thursday also will feature an American making her major semi-final debut number 13 Emma Navaro against number two AR sabalenka who has won the past two Australian Open titles sabalenka lost to KOCO GA in the 2023 Final in New York Navaro ended goff's title defense in the fourth round there are also two Americans in the men's semi-finals but they'll face each other number 12 Taylor Fritz takes on number 20 Francis tafo on Friday the lopsided nature of pula's win was surprising but she believed this day would come I knew I could do it I just had to go out and execute my game and not get frustrated she said luckily I felt like I was able to take advantage of something she wasn't doing well very early and then was able to kind of ride that momentum throughout the match swek served ply in the first set and her forehand was a real problem with 22 of her 41 unforced errors coming on that side Pula made only 22 unforced errors in all and used terrific defense to keep forcing swek to hit an extra shot pigula repeatedly did what seemed nearly impossible lately against swk who counts the 2022 US Open among her five grand brand slam titles and has led the WTA rankings for most of the past 2 and a half years break her serve entering Wednesday swotch had lost only a pair of service games across four matches in the tournament both in the first round and she didn't even face a single breako in any of her most recent three contests but Pula whose parents own the NFL's Buffalo Bills and NHL's Buffalo sabes didn't have much trouble in that department especially at the outset break in each of sw's initial two service games which both ended with double faults and three of the first six it helped that swotch was unable to properly calibrate her first serves early putting just two of 12 to 16.7% in play at the start and only 36% for the opening set even as the games kept going in her favor pigula didn't show much perceptable emotion whether grabbing a four to zero lead just 21 minutes in or taking up that set which was greeted with a slight shake of her left fist as she walked to her sideline seat swotch didn't hide her thoughts that well she smacked her racket against the top of the net she slapped her right thigh after a forehand flew wide to get broken yet again and Trail four to three in the second set 15 minutes later it was over it's never easy to play against Jess suek said she has a tricky ball because it's pretty low and pretty flat I I just made too many mistakes Pula entered the day as the only player inside the wta's top 10 who hadn't reached a major semifinal 0 to6 in her career in Slam quarterfinals she was one lost shy of the worst major quarterfinal record by any woman in the open era shared by three players 0 to7 during that 0 to6 rut two of her exits came against swch and one was against another number one player