Nadal cruises past teen into Final 4
All-American semifinals for women
• Rafael Nadal was honest as can be before the U. S. Open when asked whether he hoped to face Roger Federer in the semifinals at the only Grand Slam tournament where they’ve never met.
The answer, t he No. 1- seeded Nadal said, was no — because he’d rather go up against someone easier to beat.
Well, Nadal did his part to make such a matchup a possibility, overwhelming 19- year- old Russian Andrey Rublev 6-1, 6- 2, 6- 2 in the quarterfinals at Flushing Meadows on Wednesday. Then Nadal — and the rest of the tennis world — had to wait hours to see whether Federer would hold up his end of the bargain.
That’s because the No. 3- seeded Federer’s quarterfinal against 24th- seeded Juan Martin del Potro in a rematch of the 2009 U. S. Open final was scheduled to be played at night.
“I’m going to be having dinner, probably,” Nadal joked about what he’d be doing while Federer played del Potro.
Then Nadal added: “Of course, it’s a match that I want to see.”
The match everyone really wanted to see — with the exception of the 24th- seeded del Potro and his fans, certainly — would be Federer vs. Nadal. And not simply because Federer owns a record 19 Grand Slam men’s singles titles, five at the U. S. Open. Nadal ranks second overall with 15, two in New York.
Their on- court s eries dates to 2004 and has included 37 meetings ( Nadal leads 23-14, although Federer took the past four), with 12 at majors ( Nadal leads 9- 3). They have played in at least two finals at each of the other three Grand Slam tournaments, most recently at the Australian Open in January.
In the women’s quarterfinals, 15th- seeded Madison Keys completed an all-American lineup in the final four with a 6- 3, 6- 3 victory over 418th- ranked qualifier Kaia Kanepi of Estonia in only 69 minutes Wednesday night. Earlier, No. 20 CoCo Vandeweghe knocked off topseeded Karolina Pliskova 7- 6 ( 4), 6- 3. Keys and Vandeweghe will meet Thursday to determine which reaches her first Grand Slam final.
Venus Will i a ms a nd Sloane Stephens set up their all-U.S. semifinal with victories Tuesday.
It is the first time since 1981 that all four women’s semifinalists in New York are from the host country.