Top seed Rafael Nadal is through to the quarter-finals of the US Open following a straightforward 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 win over fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez on Tuesday (7th September.)
He's joined in the last eight by twelfth seed Mikhail Youzhny of Russia who beat Tommy Robredo in four sets, 25th seed Stanislas Wawrinka, who defeated local favourite Sam Querrey in five and Fernando Verdasco who beat fellow Spaniard David Ferrer 5-7, 6-7 (8), 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 to progress.
In the women's draw, third seed Venus Williams made it to the semi-finals with a 7-6 6-4 win over French Open champion Francesca Schiavone of Italy as did defending champion Kim Clijsters, with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 win over Australia's Sam Stosur..
Twelfth seed Mikhail Youzhny of Russia, a semi-finalist at Flushing Meadows in 2006, was slow out of the blocks as he faced Spain's Tommy Robredo at the US Open on Tuesday but Robredo failed to capitalise on two early break-point opportunities with the score at 1-2.
Those missed chances proved crucial as the Russian took his only opportunity to break in the 11th game to open up a 6-5 lead before serving out the set.
Robredo engineered an opening when 0-30 up in the second game of the second set but Youzhny recovered to hold serve as the Spaniard failed with a TV review of a forehand on game point.
Youzhny capitalised on that let-off by claiming a break with an excellent angled backhand in the next game. Youzhny raced through his next service game and another break quickly followed as Robredo began to display his frustration by banging his racquet on the ground. But that show of petulance did not help as Youzhny closed the set out.
Robredo recovered his composure in the third set and, after surviving a break point early on, he struck in the 10th game to give himself hope of pulling off an unlikely comeback. But those hopes were quickly ended as Youzhny broke in the fifth game of the fourth set to take a 3-2 lead and he held his serve to go on and secure the win.
In the women's draw third seed Venus Williams defeated French Open champion Francesca Schiavone 7-6 (5), 6-4 to book her place in her first Grand Slam semifinal since last year's Wimbledon.
Williams will next face the winner of Tuesday's second women's quarterfinal: number two Kim Clijsters, the defending champion, against number five Sam Stosur.
Fernando Verdasco rallied from two sets down for a 5-7, 6-7 (8), 6-3, 6-3, 7-6 (4) victory over fellow Spaniard David Ferrer to reach the last four in the men's section of the event. Eighth-seed Verdasco trailed 4-2 in the fifth set and 4-1 in the fifth-set tiebreaker before winning a match that took 4 hours, 23 minutes.
This was only the second time Verdasco has overcome a two-set deficit to win.
Back in the women's draw defending champion Kim Clijsters ran her US Open winning streak to 19 matches by beating Australia's Sam Stosur 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 in the quarterfinals.
The second seed will face Williams in the semi-finals, a match-up between two women who both have won two titles at Flushing Meadows
The Belgian won the US Open the last two times she entered, in 2005 and - after taking off 2 1/2 years - in 2009.
While in the final match of the night top seed Rafael Nadal in the men's draw easily disposed of fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 to book his place in the quarterfinals in New York Nadal won the French Open and Wimbledon this year to raise his total to eight major championships. He needs a US Open title to complete a career Grand Slam. AP
