US Open Day 9: Jennifer Brady dominates, Naomi Osaka honors George Floyd in win

The 2020 US Open returned to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center with no fans due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s a roundup of the ninth day of action.

Jennifer Brady advances to first semifinal

Jennifer Brady, seeded 28th, continued her impressive streak at this year’s US Open and reached her first Grand Slam semifinal. She defeated No. 23 seed Yulia Putintseva in straight sets, 6-3, 6-2, in less than an hour and 10 minutes.

Brady has yet to drop a set in the tournament. In 10 sets she’s lost only 24 games total.

Brady, 25, came into the quarterfinal match-up having lost both of her previous matches to Putintseva and found success with both her first serves and seconds (71 percent). She went up 4-0 in the first set and had four aces and 11 winners. She closed out the second with ease after Putintseva kept it close at first and finished with a total 22 winners.

Brady earned two impressive points to go up 5-2 in the second set. She placed a drop shot behind Putintseva after going from the back left corner of the court to the front right in returning shots. She got the next with incredible reflexes to return shots directly at her near the net.

The end point was determined by a Brady challenge. She was the first women’s college player to reach the US Open quarterfinals since Gigi Fernandez in 1994. Brady helped UCLA to a national title.

Naomi Osaka honors George Floyd, reaches semifinals

Prior to her quarterfinals match against Shelby Rogers, Naomi Osaka wore a mask honoring George Floyd, a Black man who was killed while in custody of the Minneapolis police this summer.

Osaka has has honored a different victim of race violence during each of her matches at the US Open. Floyd was the fifth name she honored, following Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin and Elijah McClain.

She said at the outset of the tournament that she brought masks with seven different names that would carry her through to the US Open final.

Osaka ensured that fans will get to see at least one more mask, too.

The 22-year-old beat Rogers easily in straight sets, winning 6-3, 6-4 in just 80 minutes. She’s now reached the semifinals for the second time in three years.

Osaka, the 2018 champion, will take on Brady on Thursday.

Alexander Zverev, Pablo Carreno Busta reach semifinals

Germany’s Alexander Zverev is headed to the semifinals.

Zverev, after getting run over in the opening set, rallied back to beat Croatia’s Borna Coric 1-6, 7-6 (7-5) ,7-1 (7-1), 6-3.

It marks the first time in 25 years that a German man has reached the semifinals at the US Open.

Coric didn’t waste much time in the opening set, bursting out to a 6-1 win in just 24 minutes. Zverev had 12 unforced errors in that opening set, too, and had three double faults in the fourth game alone.

Zverev, however, didn’t let it shake him.

He took the second and third sets each in a tiebreaker, suddenly taking full control of the match.

The 23-year-old then quickly closed out the final set to win the match. He will advance to the semifinals, where he’ll take on Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta — who advanced after Novak Djokovic.

Carreno Busta survived a marathon match that lasted more than four hours against Canada’s Denis Shapovalov — who is the first Canadian man to ever reach the quarterfinals at the US Open — late on Tuesday night, winning 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-4) 0-6, 6-3.

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