Serena Williams hits 18 aces in US Open victory

NEW YORK — Serena Williams’ yells of “Come on!” crescendoed right along with the tension in a fourth-round U.S. Open match that began as a rout and suddenly became riveting.

When she ripped a backhand winner to claim the third set’s opening game Sunday, Williams let out her loudest shout of the day, leaning forward and rocking both arms. This turned into a test, and she passed it.

Williams reached the quarterfinals at Flushing Meadows for a 10th consecutive appearance — she wasn’t there last year because she gave birth to her daughter during the tournament — by picking her level up after a lull and using 18 aces to beat Kaia Kanepi of Estonia 6-0, 4-6, 6-3.

“It was a ‘Serena scream.’ I don’t try to do it. It just comes out, and it’s just emotions,” said Williams, a six-time U.S. Open champion who finished with more than twice as many winners as Kanepi, 47-22.

“This is my job and this is what I do. This is how I earn a living. I’m going to do it the best I can,” she added. “Winning a big game and a very important game and a really tight game, I think it was just a relief.”

This match was filled with big hitting by both women, along with all manner of shifts in momentum and quality of play. In the 18-minute shutout of the first set, Kanepi’s strokes were off and Williams’ were pretty much perfect as she grabbed 24 of 30 points.

Next for the 36-yearold American comes a quarterfinal against 2016 runner-up Karolina Pliskova, who beat Williams in the U.S. Open semifinals that year.

“I really was feeling great that year. I’m feeling great now, too. But it was a little bit different story, 2016. I was, like, a dark horse. Nobody was expecting Serena Williams charges forward to return the ball during Sunday’s U.S. Open match against Kaia Kanepi. me to get that far,” Pliskova said after beating No. 18 Ashleigh Barty 6-4, 6-4.

“I know she was the best at that time, but I just wanted to win. So that’s why I won, because I believed I have a chance,” the No. 8-seeded Pliskova said. “I have a game to beat her.”

The other quarterfinal on the top half of the draw will be defending champion Sloane Stephens of the U.S. against No. 19 Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia in a rematch from the same round last year.

Stephens got there by beating No. 15 Elise Mertens of Belgium 6-3, 6-3 at night, while Sevastova defeated No. 7 Elina Svitolina 6-3, 1-6, 6-0.

Recalling her 2017 quarterfinal victory over Sevastova, which was decided by a third-set tiebreaker, Stephens said: “I had to dig really deep.”

The defending men’s champion Rafael Nadal reached his fourth Grand Slam quarterfinal of the season, and 36th of his career, by getting past Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-4, while No. 11 John Isner of the U.S. made it that far at Flushing Meadows for the first time since 2011. Isner defeated No. 25 Milos Raonic of Canada 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 and now faces 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro, who beat Borna Coric 6-4, 6-3, 6-1.

“Now is the moment to make the next step, step forward, play more aggressive. I did a lot of things well during the whole season. (It) is the moment to make it happen again,” said the No. 1-ranked Nadal, who has won 26 of his past 27 matches. “I hope to be ready to make that happen.”

He gets two days’ rest before taking on No. 9 Dominic Thiem for a semifinal berth in what will be rematch of this year’s French Open final, which Nadal won in straight sets.

Thiem prevented a rematch of last year’s U.S. Open final by eliminating 2017 runner-up and No. 5 seed Kevin Anderson 7-5, 6-2, 7-6 (2).

This will be Thiem’s first quarterfinal at a major other than the French Open — and his first match against Nadal on a surface other than red clay.

Marin Cilic, the 2014 U.S. Open champion, needed eight match points to recover from a two-set deficit and eventually edge 19-year-old Alex de Minaur 4-6, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 at 2:22 a.m. on Sunday, four minutes shy of the latest finish in the tournament’s history.

The No. 7 seed Cilic and 45th-ranked de Minaur didn’t even start their third-round match at Louis Armstrong Stadium until after 10 p.m., because of day-session matches that ran long Saturday.