US Open Day 8: One man won the ace count and lost, one woman needed six match points
Fourth round, Sunday 6 September 2026, Flushing Meadows. Two matches from the first half of the round of 16.
Frances Tiafoe beat Daniil Medvedev while losing the ace count 14-4
Medvedev hit 14 aces. Tiafoe hit four. Tiafoe won in straight sets, and the line that explains it sits further down the sheet: he won 53 percent of his second-serve points to Medvedev's 41, and he played the whole match without a double fault.
Frances Tiafoe (11) def. Daniil Medvedev (7) 7-6(1), 6-4, 7-6(6) — fourth round, US Open, Louis Armstrong Stadium, Sunday 6 September. Two hours, 57 minutes.
Medvedev's first serve was the better shot for most of the match. He landed 59 percent of them and won 75 percent of those points, against Tiafoe's 63 percent landed and 68 percent won, according to the published match statistics. On the raw serving numbers, Medvedev had the edge everywhere that gets shown on a broadcast graphic. The first set still went to a tiebreak, and Tiafoe took it 7-1.
The gap that mattered was on the second ball. Tiafoe played 43 second-serve points and won 23 of them; Medvedev played 41 and won 17. Neither number is spectacular in isolation. The difference — a dozen percentage points — is roughly one extra point per service game, and across 17 service games each that is the whole margin of a match with one break in it. Medvedev held 12 of his 17 service games and Tiafoe held 13, per the same statistics. Tiafoe converted five of eight break points; Medvedev converted four of nine.
The reports available did not give the game numbers where those breaks landed, so this recap does not claim them.
It finished in a third-set tiebreak, and Tiafoe finished it from behind. He trailed 5-6 — Medvedev a point from a fourth set — and won the next three to take it 8-6. Tiafoe had won one of their previous seven meetings, according to the ATP Tour. "This is the first time I have beaten him in a regular match," he said in his post-match comments reported by the ATP Tour.
What a club player can steal from it: stop counting aces and start counting second-serve points won. Aces are the stat that gets talked about and the one that decides the fewest matches; the player who won fewer than a third as many won this one. Tiafoe's zero double faults across 43 second serves is the other half of it — margin on the second ball is not the same as taking pace off it, and free points handed back are the most expensive points in tennis. Track your own second-serve win rate for three matches. If it is under 40 percent, that is where your afternoon is going.
Linda Noskova took six match points and more than an hour to close one out
Two came and went at 5-4 in the second set. Three more came and went at 5-4 in the third. She won on the sixth, and the whole business took over an hour from the first chance to the last.
Linda Noskova (6) def. Marta Kostyuk (11) 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 — fourth round, US Open, Sunday 6 September. Two hours, 27 minutes.
Noskova took the first set 7-5 and then served for the match at 5-4 in the second. She had two match points in that game. Kostyuk saved the first with a forehand winner and the second at the net, held, and then won four straight games to take the set 7-5. Noskova left the court for a bathroom break at the change of sets.
The third set was even to 3-3, and then Noskova broke. That break was the entire margin of the set. She held for 5-3, Kostyuk held for 5-4, and Noskova served for it a second time — which is where the other three match points went. Kostyuk saved all three. Noskova won that game anyway, converting the sixth when Kostyuk's backhand return went into the net.
It was that close on the sheet too. Noskova won 105 points to Kostyuk's 104, and converted six of nine break points to Kostyuk's five of seven, according to the match statistics published by Tennis Tonic. Aces went 9-0 to Kostyuk; both players served six double faults. "I am more than relieved," Noskova said afterwards.
What a club player can steal from it: a saved match point does not end the game. Noskova had three go by at 5-4 in the third and kept serving the same patterns until a fourth arrived in that same game — the temptation after a chance or two goes by is to switch to something safer, which is how a 5-4 game becomes 5-5. From the other side, look at how Kostyuk survived: both of her saves in the second set came from her hitting through the point, a forehand winner and a ball put away at the net, not from getting one more ball back and hoping. On match point down, the passive shot is the one that loses.
Around the grounds
Carlos Alcaraz (2) def. Tommy Paul (20) 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 — the defending champion moved through in straight sets.
Ben Shelton (8) def. Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 — Shelton won 84 percent of his first-serve points and hit 11 aces against 17 unforced errors, per Bleacher Report.
Alex Michelsen def. Tomas Martin Etcheverry (27) 7-6(6), 6-4, 6-4 — the 22-year-old reached his first Grand Slam quarterfinal without dropping a set all tournament, hitting 44 winners, per Bleacher Report.
Aryna Sabalenka (1) def. Taylor Townsend 6-4, 6-3 — seven breaks of serve between them, four of them against Sabalenka, and a sixth straight US Open quarterfinal for the top seed.
Jessica Pegula (3) def. Sorana Cirstea (16) 6-3, 6-4 — Pegula broke the Cirstea serve seven times.
Emma Navarro (26) def. Anna Kalinskaya (21) 6-4, 6-2 — straight sets, and a place in the quarterfinals for Navarro.
What's next
Monday completes the fourth round: the ATP Tour's schedule lists top seed Alexander Zverev against Luciano Darderi in the Arthur Ashe night session and Learner Tien against Karen Khachanov on Louis Armstrong.
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