Kazakhstan’s Shvedova reaches U.S. Open fourth round, will face Serena next

Kazakhstan’s Yaroslava Shvedova advanced to the U.S. Open fourth round with a 62, 75 victory Saturday over China’s Zhang Shuai and will next take on American world No. 1 and top seed Serena Williams, who brushed aside Sweden’s Johanna Larsson 62, 61.

Shvedova dominated the first set on Court 5, striking nine winners to Zhang’s four, breaking the Chinese player’s serve twice and not facing a single break point.

In the second set, the Kazakh world No. 52 made life more difficult for herself by putting just 46 percent of her first serves in play, thereby allowing Zhang to win many more points on return and convert two of her five breakpoint opportunities.

Even so, Shvedova continued to heap pressure on her opponent’s serve and that allowed her to break Zhang’s serve three more times, including the decisive break in the 11th game.

Shvedova then served out the match a game later when Zhang dumped a forehand in the net.

The Kazakh struck 24 winners overall to Zhang’s 11, although she also committed 31 unforced errors, six more than her opponent.

Shvedova also showcased the net game that makes her the world’s fifthranked doubles player, winning 22 of her 25 net approaches. Zhang, by contrast only came forward five times, winning three of those points.

The difficulty level, however, will rise considerably for Shvedova in the next round when she takes on the 34yearold Williams, a 22time Grand Slam champion who won Wimbledon earlier this summer and has not dropped more than three games in any set thus far this year in New York.

In other women’s singles results Saturday afternoon, Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro defeated Russia’s Elena Vesnina 64, 63, fifthseeded Romanian Simona Halep overcame a secondset hiccup to top Hungary’s Timea Babos 61, 26, 64, Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska cruised past France’s Carolina Garcia 62, 63 and Croatian teenager Ana Konjuh overcame 30yearold American Varvara Lepchenko 63, 36, 62.

In men’s singles action Saturday, Argentine Juan Martin del Potro, the 2009 champion, showed more evidence of his return to tennis’ highest level as he handily dispatched Spanish No. 11 seed David Ferrer 76 (73), 62, 63 to reach the fourth round.

The 27yearold unseeded Del Potro has undergone several wrist surgeries in recent years that forced him to miss nine consecutive Grand Slam events between 2014 and this summer.

But he upset fourthseeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka at Wimbledon and then made a stunning run to the men’s singles goldmedal match at the Rio Olympics, losing to British world No. 2 Andy Murray in the final after defeating 12time Grand Slam champion and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the first round and 14time Grand Slam champion Rafael Nadal in the semifinals.

Del Potro will next play Austria’s Dominic Thiem, a 16, 64, 64, 75 winner over Spain’s Pablo Carreño Busta.

Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov also advanced to the round of 16 with a 64, 61, 36, 62 victory over Portugal’s Joao Sousa and will next play the winner of the match between Murray and Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi.