US Open Week 2 storylines: Top seeds and Olympic medalists eye quarterfinals

NEW YORK -- While the three male Olympic medal winners -- Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz, and Lorenzo Musetti -- all abruptly left the US Open draw in a span of 24 hours, all three women on the Paris podium reached the second week.

Iga Swiatek, the bronze medalist, has yet to drop a set and dropped only seven games in her past two matches. Gold and silver medalists Zheng Qinwen and Donna Vekic actually had to play each other in a fourth-round match late Sunday night.

The season’s last major is often spiced with upsets -- and the addition of the Olympics to the calendar threatened to cause more chaos. But six of the top seven seeds reached the fourth round; the only exception was No.4 Elena Rybakina, who withdrew in advance of the second round with an undisclosed injury.

The top two seeds (Swiatek and Sabalenka) could reach the quarterfinals here for the first time in eight years.

Strap in, it’s go-time. Here’s what we’re watching in Week 2:

Is it Iga’s time in NYC -- again?

In the blur that was 2022, Swiatek became the World No.1 for the first time and made another breakthrough in New York. This accomplishment has been overshadowed by those four titles at Roland Garros (in five years), but she’s clearly a serious player here.

She’s riding particularly high right now after a visit from The GOAT, Serena Williams on Saturday. They chatted before Swiatek’s win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. It was the first time the six-time US Open champion has been back since playing her last match two years ago.

“I still felt, even though we met before and for a couple of years we have been on the same sides and on tour together, she’s still like star-striking me,” Swiatek said, smiling. “It was nice that she approached me, because I wouldn't, for sure, find courage to do that if it was the other way.

“I’m happy that she’s following tennis and my game, because she told me that she's cheering for me.”

Swiatek plays No.16 Liudmila Samsonova, whom she’s beaten all three times they’ve played.

The surprise survivors

Thirteen of the 16 players in the Round of 16 were seeded. No.80 Wang Yafan was the lowest-ranked player, but she fell to Paula Badosa on Sunday. So who are the interlopers?

To be fair, they’ve won a few matches in their time.

The 34-year-old Caroline Wozniacki is ranked No.71, but she’s a former World No.1 and a Grand Slam champion. No.52 Karolina Muchova was a semifinalist here last year and is coming off some serious surgery. They both play on Monday.

This will be the first meeting between Wozniacki and Beatriz Haddad Maia, while Muchova won the only previous WTA main-draw match against No.5 Jasmine Paolini.

And then there’s 20-year-old Diana Shnaider, the No.18 seed and the youngest player left in the draw. She’ll meet No.6 Jessica Pegula, who won their first-career match a few weeks ago, 6-4, 6-3, in the Toronto semifinals.

The `amazing’ Jasmine Paolini

This might be the most incredible statistic from the 2024 season:

Before this year, Paolini won only four Grand Slam singles matches (losing 16). This year, she leads all women with 18 (against only three losses).

Reaching back-to-back finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon was a spectacular feat for the 28-year-old Italian. She and Coco Gauff are the only women to reach the fourth round of all four Grand Slams this year.

“This year has been amazing,” Paolini told reporters. “I played a lot of first-time things. First time I won two matches in a Slam.

“It’s something that’s crazy if they told me at the beginning of the year before the Australian Open, that I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Dubs … for days

How great is the mixed pairing of Taylor Townsend and Donald Young?

“He’s retiring so he asked me to play,” Townsend explained. “I was like, `You’re the reason I believed I could play any sort of pro tennis.’ Because he’s the closest I was around to it.

“He said he was training for this, and I said, `You better be. I’m going to show out, but I can’t carry the both of us.’”

They’re into the mixed doubles quarterfinals. They could meet No.4 seeds Barbora Krejcikova and Matthew Ebden in the semifinals.

Top doubles seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe are also through to the quarters.

Badosa bounces back

She was ranked No.100 at the Australian Open, coming off a seven-month layoff with chronic back pain. Paula Badosa wasn’t really sure she’d ever play elite tennis again.

And then she reached the fourth round at Wimbledon, won the WTA 500 title in Washington, D.C., and made the semifinals in the WTA 1000 event in Cincinnati. Now she’s into the quarterfinals of the US Open for the first time, and for the second time at a major. With a win over Coco Gauff/Emma Navarro, she’d be the first Spanish woman to reach these semifinals since Conchita Martinez in 1996 and find herself ranked well inside the Top 20.

“I always knew that if my back responded well and my injury responded well, I knew I could get back to the top,” Badosa said. “I just needed my physical part to respond, and I think the mental and the tennis was there.

“I want to play big stages. I want to play the last rounds of every tournament. I want to be one of the best players in the world.”

Pegula feeling fresh

This is the time of year when most players are dragging at the end of a long sprint through the North American hard-court season, but Jessica Pegula isn’t one of them. She’s won 12 of 13 matches.

“I skipped the entire clay season -- I wasn’t able to play the French,” Pegula said. “So I think when I started on grass, I had a couple of months off. Also, I didn’t go to the Middle East.

“I think in a weird way, it was almost a good thing looking back that I’ve been able to kind of start that part of the year pretty fresh. Even though it was a lot going back and forth with the Olympics and the surface changes and all that.”

Since the start of the Olympics, Pegula has won more matches than any woman (13) and took the title in Toronto and made the final in Cincinnati.