New York: American women continued their winning juggernaut at the US Open tennis tournament as both Madison Keys and Coco Vanderweghe made it to the quarterfinals here Monday. They joined Venus Williams and Sloane Stephens who had made it to the last eight Sunday.
Also booking their places in the quarterfinals were World No.1 Karolina Pliskova and Estonia’s World No. 418 Kaia Kanepi. The Estonian is only the second qualifier to have made it to the quarters in the history of the US Open.
The 32-year-old Kanepi, a former World No. 15 whose career was almost ended by illness and a crippling injury, downed Russia’s Daria Kasatkina 6-4, 6-4. “This is unbelievable,” Kanepi could only blurt out after the match. “I never thought, that I will live to see this day.
She will next face Keys who put out fourth seed Elina Svitolina 7-6(7/2), 1-6, 6-4, ending the Ukrainian’s hopes of taking the World No.1 spot.
It will be Kanepi’s sixth quarterfinal at the Majors and second one here after also reaching the last eight in 2010.
“It’s very tough to believe where I am now after all that has happened. I didn’t expect it,” said Kanepi, who is playing in the main draw of an event for the first time this year.
Top seed Pliskova, the runner-up in 2016, needed just 46 minutes to sweep past American Jennifer Brady 6-1, 6-0 and make her third Slam quarterfinal of the year. Awaiting her is 20th seed CoCo Vandeweghe, who made the last eight for the first time by beating Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 7-6(7/2).
Agence France-Presse