Redemption for Amanda Anisimova as she gets revenge on Iga Swiatek

Seven-and-a-half weeks after enduring a humiliating 6-0, 6-0 defeat in the Wimbledon final, Amanda Anisimova claimed both redemption and revenge in style at the US Open by knocking out the same opponent, Iga Swiatek, in the quarter-finals.

The contrast in the post-match scenes on Arthur Ashe Stadium compared with Centre Court was quite remarkable. Anisimova was in tears on July 13 minutes after losing the first All England Club women’s singles final to feature a “double bagel” scoreline since 1911, but here the 24-year-old American lapped up the adulation of her home crowd after a 6-4, 6-3 win.

Emotions got the better of the American during an emotional runners-up speech at Wimbledon

Anisimova now goes through to her first US Open semi-final, against Naomi Osaka. She has also become the first American female player to reach grand-slam semi-finals on tennis’s three surfaces of hard, grass and clay — she made a last-four appearance at Roland Garros in 2019 — since Serena and Venus Williams.

Most importantly, though, Anisimova has banished the painful memories from Wimbledon. She admitted that day she was “frozen with nerves” in the biggest match of her career but there were few signs of any tension at Flushing Meadows during a tremendous display of aggressive ball-striking.

“To come back from Wimbledon like that is really special to me,” Anisimova said. “I feel like I worked so hard to try and turn around from that and today proved everything for me — I can do it so this was really special.”

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Swiatek was in great form coming into this contest, having been on a ten-match win streak which included a title at the Cincinnati Open. Worryingly for Anisimova, she had her serve broken in the first game of the opening set.

Swiatek had been on a ten-match winning streak REUTERS

There was clear relief for Anisimova when she got on the board with an immediate break back for 1-1, and she took the initiative from there by dominating the baseline rallies to go on and take the set.

Swiatek responded by going up 2-0 with a break in the second set but again Anisimova continued to pound the ball into the corners of the court and won six of the next seven games for a famous triumph, which concluded with a fortunate backhand that hit the net cord and trickled over.

“Playing here is so freaking special,” Anisimova said. “From the get-go, I was trying to fire myself up. Iga is one of the toughest players I’ve ever played and I knew that I was going to have dig really deep and it was such a tough match. I know the scoreline wasn’t three sets but it truly was a battle for me.”

Auger-Aliassime digs in to overcome errors and nerves and reach semis

One of the nerviest grand-slam quarter-finals in recent years was won by Felix Auger-Aliassime, who overcame 50 unforced errors and 11 double faults to beat Alex de Minaur for a place in the semi-finals of the US Open.

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This match will contribute little to the end-of-tournament highlights reel, but there was still something quite fascinating in watching Auger-Aliassime, the No25 seed from Canada, and De Minaur, the No8 seed from Australia, both battle crippling tension over the course of four hours and ten minutes on Arthur Ashe Stadium.

In the end Auger-Aliassime’s power proved the difference, helping him to fight back from a set down to prevail 4-6, 7-6 (9-7), 7-5, 7-6 (7-4). The 25-year-old progresses to the last four of a grand-slam tournament for only the second time, after reaching the same stage here at Flushing Meadows in 2021.

“I think it was just a lot of nerves today during the whole match,” Auger-Aliassime said. “It wasn’t pretty at all times but that’s what grand-slam matches are. Some days you won’t feel your best but I was willing to dig really deep to stand here right now.”

It makes for another soul-crushing loss for 26-year-old De Minaur, who has now lost all six grand-slam quarter-finals he has contested. He even had a set point in the second-set tie-break for a two-set lead, which was saved by an Auger-Aliassime ace.

De Minaur is one of the quickest players on the tour but a lack of powerful weapons has cost him on the biggest stages in the sport. While he made seven fewer unforced errors than Auger-Aliassime, he was overwhelmed on the ace count with eight to his opponent’s 22 and in winners with 29 to 51.

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The fourth set was also an opportunity missed. De Minaur had a 5-2 lead but faltered when he attempted to serve out the set at 5-3 for a decider. Both players then hit consecutive double faults to start the tie-break, and again when Auger-Aliassime was 4-2 up, before the Canadian stepped up when it mattered most on his first match point at 6-4 with an unreturnable forehand.

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Auger-Aliassime, who next plays Jannik Sinner on Friday, is long considered to have fallen short of the promise he showed as a teenager when he became the youngest player to win a match on the second-tier ATP Challenger circuit at the age of 14. Although he reached a career-high world ranking of No6 in 2022, he has repeatedly struggled to contend for the sport’s biggest tournaments and dropped down to No35 in 2024.

“Honestly, it was a tough couple of years, but it feels even better now to be back in the semi-finals,” Auger- Aliassime said. “It’s been an amazing tournament to so far.

“It’s not over, there’s still some tennis to play. The biggest challenges are yet to come but that’s what I live for, that’s what I train for so I’m going to show up and be ready for my match on Friday.”

The victory means Sinner has still dropped just one set at the tournament EDUARDO MUNOZ/REUTERS

Sinner, the world No1, booked his place in the last four with a comfortable 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 victory over fellow Italian Lorenzo Musetti. In another show of his unwavering consistency Sinner saved all seven of the break points he faced and converted five of his own six. He also won 91 per cent of points off his first serve.

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With victory Sinner, 24, became the youngest man to win 25 grand-slam matches in a season and has now won 26 hard-court grand-slam matches in a row. It took Musetti six games just to get on the board but the second set was much tighter and the match could have headed in a different direction had the 23-year-old taken his chances.

Meanwhile, three British players have reached the quarter-finals of the junior singles events. Mika Stojsavljevic, the 16-year-old girls’ singles defending champion, came back from a set down to beat Jana Kovackova 5-7, 6-1, 7-5, while Hannah Klugman, the 16-year-old French Open runner-up, performed a similar recovery in her match to see off Julie Pastikova 1-6, 6-3, 6-4. Oliver Bonding, 18, knocked out the Spanish boys’ singles No2 seed Andres Santamarta Roig 6-3, 6-4.

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