After a Day 3 that was full of serious rain, the weather is lovely in Queens for Day 4 and the US Open is pushing forward.
Both world No. 1 players take the court on Thursday (Ashleigh Barty and Novak Djokovic), as well as Belinda Bencic, who won gold in Tokyo, and two form US Open winners, Angelique Kerber (2016) and Bianca Andreescu (2019). The results of the matches on Day 4 will close out Round 2, and set up the last undecided matches of Round 3.
Check back here for updates on the notable wins and losses of sunny Day 4 at the US Open.
Ash Barty easily handles Clara Tauson
Ashleigh Barty took care of business in the first match of Day 4, beating 18-year-old Clara Tauson 6-1, 7-6.
It wasn’t a great sign for Tauson, the No. 78 women’s singles player in the world, that the announcers began this Round 2 match by saying that she would hopefully learn something from facing Barty, the world No. 1. Unfortunately for Tauson, there was never any question that Barty would win, it was just a matter of how long it would take for her to do it.
The answer? 90 minutes.
It looked like it might be a battle early in the first set, when Barty faced 10 break points in the 10-plus minute second game, but that turned out to be an outlier. Tauson managed to eke out a win and eliminate that zero on the scoreboard, but Barty took the set in just 34 minutes.
Tauson finally got her first break point after losing the first match of the second set, which brought her even with Barty at one game apiece. She then won the next game, her very first lead of the match. Barty tied it up, but Tauson kept on fighting. Down 5-3, she fought off a match point from Barty and then quickly tied up the set at 5-5.
Then Barty took control once again, snapping off two straight games to win the set and the match. But Tauson has nothing to feel bad about. At 18, she hung in there against the best in the world and even had her on the ropes a few times. If this match showed anything, it’s that Tauson will be back.