Serena Williams became the winning-est player in Grand Slam history, notching her 308th career match win in a major main draw.
Andy Murray celebrating his victory
After equaling the achievements of Martina Navratilova (306) and Roger Federer (307) earlier in the tournament, Williams used a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Yaroslava Shvedova to secure No. 308 and book herself a spot in the quarterfinals.It’s there that the No. 1 player in the world and six-time Open champion will face a stern test in No. 5 seed Simona Halep, the 2014 French Open runner up.
Serena, however, would like to get to 311 Slam wins this U.S. Open: That would mean she would win the tournament, earning her a record 23rd major (and break her tie with Steffi Graf at 22) as well as maintain her No. 1 ranking, which is in jeopardy over the next few days.“This is where it all started, so it’s always magical for me,” Williams said on court. “But 308 sounds pretty good.”
Williams is still yet to drop serve in this tournament and has lost just 20 games in four matches played. She’s only faced one break point in those four matches, and Monday served 11 aces en route to victory.“I’ve never served this consistently,” she said on court. “I’m not going to ask questions. I’m going to just keep serving.”
Williams has a 7-1 head-to-head lead on Halep, who won the summer event in Montreal last month. They were set to meet in last year’s U.S. Open final before both getting upset in respective semifinals.Williams hit an astounding 28 winners in Monday’s 68-minute match. She appeared calm and focused out of the gates, the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd still buzzing from Venus’ three-set defeat at the hands of Pliskova.
Andy Murray’s US Open challenge is back on track after a thumping 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 victory here over Grigor Dimitrov.
The speed with which Murray closed out victory over the 24-year-old Bulgarian was underlined when he hit the fastest serve of his career. The thunderous ace which Murray hit to win the first set was timed at 141mph, which was 3mph quicker than his previous best, recorded here eight years ago against Jurgen Melzer.
“Once I got up in the score, I wasn’t giving him any free points,” Murray said afterwards. “I could sense it was getting tough for him. I just wanted to keep my foot on the gas, which I didn’t really do the other day.
“That was the one thing that I wasn’t happy with against Lorenzi. When I did win a first set that was tight and in which I didn’t play my best, I kind of let him back into the match after I got a break early in the second set.
“I wanted to make sure today that if I got ahead, I stayed on top of him, didn’t have any dip in concentration or my level, and stuck to my tactics that were working well.”
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