The US Open Third Round Ends on Friday and Sixteen Players Will Be Left in Each Singles Draw
Carlos Alcaraz needed two hours and forty minutes to get through the second round. Thailand's Lanlana Tararudee is already out.
The third round of the US Open concludes on Friday, leaving 16 players in each singles draw.
Carlos Alcaraz, the second seed and defending champion, is through after beating Jaime Faria 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2. He lost the opening set and spent two hours and 40 minutes on court, which is a long second-round match for a player who has only recently returned from a wrist injury and has played very little since April.
Aryna Sabalenka, the world number one and defending champion in the women's draw, beat Polina Iatcenko 6-1, 6-1 in a match that lasted a fraction of that.
The men's draw is missing Jannik Sinner, out injured, and his absence is doing a great deal of work in the American conversation. Four American men reached the third round. Ben Shelton, the eighth seed, came through Hubert Hurkacz 6-3, 5-7, 7-6(3), 7-5, and Frances Tiafoe beat Rei Sakamoto 6-3, 7-6(2), 7-5. No American man has won a major since 2003, a drought of 23 years, and this is the draw in which the arithmetic looks least unreasonable.
On the women's side, Jessica Pegula, the runner-up here in 2024, beat Sofia Kenin 6-3, 6-1, and Emma Navarro beat Caty McNally 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 in an all-American match.
Southeast Asian interest ended early. Lanlana Tararudee of Thailand lost to Linda Noskova, the Wimbledon champion, 6-4, 6-2. Reaching the second round of a hard-court major is itself unusual for Thai tennis, which has produced very few players in the main draw at this level since Paradorn Srichaphan.
Four rounds remain after Friday: the fourth round, quarter-finals, semi-finals and the finals on the second weekend.