Berrettini survives Ivashka scare
Olympic champion Bencic puts on a masterclass to reach last 16
Italian sixth seed Matteo Berrettini survived a thirdround test from Ilya Ivashka to win 6-7(5) 6-2 6-4 2-6 6-3, firing off 27 aces in front of an adoring Grandstand crowd yesterday.
A handful of unforced errors cost the first-set tiebreak for the Wimbledon runnerup, who got the break in the fourth game of the second set and fired 21 winners to plow through the third.
Berrettini put up a strong defensive performance in the fourth, saving six of eight break points, but the Belarusian converted when it counted as the Italian struggled at the baseline.
The crowd chanted “Matteo!” as he began serving for the match and the 25-yearold pumped his fist and let out a roar after clinching the contest to reach the fourth round at Flushing Meadows for the third year in a row.
He next faces German qualifier Oscar Otte.
Olympic champion Belinda Bencic put on a serving masterclass to beat Jessica Pegula 6-2 6-4 and reach the last 16.
Perfect serve
The 11th-seeded Swiss won 85 per cent of her first serve points and smacked four aces to improve to a 3-0 record against Pegula, including a victory over the American at the Tokyo Games that kicked off her gold medal-winning campaign. For Bencic, who has yet to drop a set in New York, the only struggle came when she was unable to convert three match point opportunities on Pegula’s serve.
Former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu fired off 21 winners to make quick work of Belgian Greet Minnen 6-1 6-2. The 21-year-old Canadian won nearly all of her first-serve points in the first set on Louis Armstrong Stadium with just four unforced errors, two years after she hoisted the trophy.
Andreescu never let Minnen get a foothold in the second set, when she fended off three break points and excelled from the baseline to extend her unbeaten streak at Flushing Meadows to 10-0 in a little over an hour.