Tennis-No labor day: Pegula, Muchova and Draper cruise into U.S. Open quarters
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NEW YORK, Sept 2 (Reuters) -Jessica Pegula, Karolina Muchova and Jack Draper all booked their spots in the U.S. Open quarter-finals with stress-free straight sets wins at Flushing Meadows on Monday, as a fire alarm interrupted matches later in the afternoon.
On the United States'Labor Day holiday, American Pegula was efficient yet again ina 6-4 6-2 victory over Russia's Diana Shnaider and set up a meeting with either top seed Iga Swiatek or Liudmila Samsonova, who play later on Monday.
Sixth-seed Pegula, who missed the French Open due to injury but triumphed at a U.S. Open tune-up event in Canada last month, said her game is trending in the right direction as the pressure-packed second week of the Grand Slam gets underway.
"Today was the best I've felt off the ground so I want to keep working and bringing my best tennis for the later rounds," shesaid.
"There's always a lot of pressure here but I like it. It's nice being an American here and getting all the support."
Muchova, who like Pegula has yet to drop a set at the tournament, hit 17 winners to upset Italian fifth seed Jasmine Paolini 6-3 6-3.
The unseeded Czech appears to be fully recovered from the wrist surgery that had sidelined her for 10 months and will next face Brazil's Beatriz Haddad Maia for a place in the semis.
Haddad Maia survived a tough test to send Caroline Wozniacki packing 6-2 3-6 6-3, producing over 40 winners before closing it out with an unreturnable serve on the third match point.
On the men's side, Britain's Draper crushed an error-prone Tomas Machac 6-3 6-1 6-2 to reach the quarters of a Grand Slam for the first time, becoming the first British man since Andy Murray in 2016 to qualify for the final eight at Flushing Meadows.
The 25th seed has won all 12 sets he has played at Flushing Meadows this year and awaits the winner of an all-Australian battle between Alex de Minaur and Jordan Thompson.
"I feel like there's still a long way for me to go and a lot that I can still improve on in this tournament," said Draper.
"Obviously as the challenge gets higher and as I play even better players, I think hopefully my level will increase with that."
The only drama for fifth seed Daniil Medvedev was afire alarm that went off at an on-site broadcast building and halted play for about six minutes, as the Russian ended Nuno Borges' dream run 6-0 6-1 6-3.
The 2021 winner will next play either top seed Jannik Sinner or American Tommy Paul.
"Tommy has been playing unbelievable this year," said Medvedev. "With Jannik, we had some unbelievable battles - if I play him, it's probably going to be physical for both of us."
Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles and Amy Tennery in New York, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Ken Ferris
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