Caroline Garcia felt herself growing wings after her exploit in the previous round, but Jennifer Brady cut them off on Friday in the 3rd round of the US Open where Corentin Moutet finished victorious in his 2nd round match started the day before.
While waiting for the third match of world No.1 Novak Djokovic, at the opening of the night session on the Arthur-Ashe court, the 2018 winner Naomi Osaka was pushed to her limits there before winning her ticket for the 8th.
Her victory over Czech Karolina Pliskova (3rd in the world and seeded N.1) in the 2nd round showed that Garcia was on track to regain the game that had allowed him to reach 4th place in the world in 2018 before a move to physical vacuum.
The performance required confirmation and, unfortunately, the 50th in the world was severely beaten by Brady (41st) 6-3, 6-3 in 1:16.
It will not yet be this year that the 26-year-old Lyonnaise will cross for the first time the milestone of the first week at Flushing Meadows and her best Grand Slam result will therefore still remain her quarter-final at Roland Garros in 2017. The American Jennifer Brady will face 2016 winner Angelique Kerber (23rd) for a spot in the quarterfinals.
Moutet to finish
For his part, Corentin Moutet (77th) had a good performance by beating the Briton Daniel Evans (31st) 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/1).
This last match of the second round of the men's table started on Thursday but was interrupted by rain and the two players met on Friday to resume when the score was 4-6, 6-3, 6-5 in favor of the Frenchman. .
At 21, Moutet will therefore play a third round for the first time at Flushing Meadows.
It will be on Saturday against the Canadian prodigy Felix Auger-Aliassime (21st).
His best Grand Slam result was the third round reached last year at Roland Garros.
At the same time, Naomi Osaka, 9th in the world, ended up winning her ticket for the 8th, but she was pushed to its limits by the young Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk (137th) who bravely played her luck before giving up 6-3, 6- 7 (4/7), 6-2 in 2h33.
The Japanese, winner in 2018, will face Magda Linette (37th) or Anett Kontaveit (21st) to try to reach the quarterfinals.
Osaka dominated the first set but in the second she lost track of her game and showed signs of nervousness as her fiery opponent took all the risks and snatched the second set from the tie break.
Fortunately for the Japanese, if Kostyuk made remarkable shots, she also committed many unforced errors, taking maximum risk requires.
So much so that the former world No. 1 clearly regained the upper hand to conclude this very spectacular game.
Concern, however, on the side of Adrian Mannarino (39th) whose third round match against Alexander Zverev (7th) had still not started more than an hour after the end of the previous meeting on the Louis-Armstrong court.
Mannarino is one of the players who, having rubbed shoulders with Benoît Paire, tested positive for coronavirus and excluded from the tournament, were placed under close surveillance and in isolation.
While he should have battled the Frenchman on the Louis-Armstrong court, Zverev was quietly watching the Shapovalov-Fritz game on the Arthur-Ashe.
In the evening, the big favorite of the tournament Novak Djokovic will continue the quest for an 18th Major.
To do this, he will have to win a 26th straight victory since the start of the season, against the tough German Jan-Lennard Struff (29th).
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