2026 US OPEN DAY 10: Tiafoe’s 5-Set Comeback, Sabalenka Survives, Pegula Rolls & More

I have my dream job, but even dream jobs have not so dreamy parts. That's where ServiceNow's AI Specialists come in. They don't just tell you what to do about your busy work, they actually do it. That way your team can focus on what matters. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com. Hey, well, welcome to QuickServe, brought to you by ServiceNow. We're in the Cadillac Studio again. I'm kind of just getting used to it now. Yeah, escalate IQ. We're not wearing our seat belts because we're not moving because we're out. You can see there's stuff still. But you know what is still in this car? It's the AKG Studio Reference sound system with Dolby Atmos, which gives you an immersive audio experience. You know how many speakers apparently it is in this setup to give you that experience? How? How many? 38, which is also the number of wins in the U.S. open arena sublink I had in her career, heading in to today's match against basketball. Look at that. Look at you. Look at the Cadillac Escalade IQ, pretty smart. Great, great through line, right to sublink a nosecava. All right, so it's like, I don't know, 12.30 at night, almost one in the morning. I had the day match tomorrow on ESPN. So currently Alcoraz won the first set. It is one all in the second set. And we'll get to that and kind of first thoughts on the set. But like, let's say, I mean, we might as well go with the person with 30 wins. Let's go in order because that's the reason why this match is currently happening right now because everything got stacked. 39 now. At the U.S. open? That's what the stats say. She's 17, but I mean. 30, she is 39 and 8. That's what the stats says on 10 abstract. That's a lot of wins. Yeah. Who is it? Just say it out loud. Tennis abstract.com. So if they're okay. So we're not wrong, they're wrong. Yeah. Okay. Great. Sobel Lincoln needed to win a tight match. Like, this was perfect. That nosecava is really good. Okay. Winds Wimbledon comes in, gives Sobel Lincoln a hell. But for all the worry. Which was valid. Coming in with Sobel Lincoln. No form. You know, the weird loss to Schneider at the Roll and Garros when she kind of just deconstructed completely and Naomi taking her out of Wimbledon and you know, loss in Canada, loss in Cincinnati, since it had to be like. A lot of questions around her. And what does she do when she gets to New York? Get to the semis. Yeah. She needs to win a tight match like this. I think this was a really good thing for her going into the semifinals. No scuba is going to be, I mean, she's obviously already won Wimbledon this year. But like right back in the next slam in the mix again. So I think that's going to serve her well over time. Emma Navarro takes the first set against Jess Pagul. And Pagul just kind of works her way back over the course of of the night. She's kind of just getting through it. It's what she always does. Yeah. Yeah. She was 4-0 leading and heading this match over Emma. Now 5-0. Yeah. There's something to that match up. Yeah. You know, where I just, Jess always seems to just stick around. Yeah. Maintain like this, this even emotion. Yeah. And just, just win. And she thought through it because she let the first set go. It was a game. She had three doubles. Two in the net and then sailed one. And you know, so she was kind of looking at at her box a little bit. But you know, Layla Fernandez down the first set. You know, Navarro loses the first set. She's showing some metal kind of getting through. I don't think she's actually gotten to her best tennis yet. I think we're giving her a lot of credit for like the leading stuff. So I think she's going to have to level up to beat, to beat Savileca. But credit to Jess. Like she just, she just wins matches. Is she, she's a leader on two and wins this year? Yeah. Yeah. That out of the day is with that win, it was her 50th win of the year, according to Math and the WTA website. It's a WTA website. It has her 45 wins and then they add, they add the amount of wins after each tournament. So I'm not great at math, but 45 wins plus five wins here. That would be 50. You nailed it. Yeah. We're good. You do basic math. It just don't ask me like multiplication. Yeah, no, please don't. Not at this time of night. But just fantastic stuff. Thanks for listening to "Served." We will be right back. So much of what goes into being a player on tour is behind the scenes. Every moment matters when you're competing at the highest level. The part that doesn't get talked about enough is recovery. When I was on tour, recovery had a very different meaning. Have a meal, quick session with the physio. Now, technology enables coaches and players to track their fitness in an entirely new way and make changes as a result. 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One in the morning and we are in the first couple of games as Ben has a break point here at one on the second. One in the morning and this match is like still and it's kind of maybe infancy. Yeah. If Ben doesn't, but great match you feel for Michelson, foe puts in the work, talks about his fitness, talks about the mentality, talks about being a professional. All of that work hours and hours and hours and hours and hours is so you have the opportunity to pull out one of these matches at this stage. So, you know, part of me is like happy for foe that the work pays off and, you know, the renewed commitment post US Open last year because I think he was in a pretty bad place after that. Kind of searching a little bit. Did not play well here last year. And then your heart is broken for Alex Michelson because of the emotion he showed afterwards and serving for the match. Up to set 5-4 just throws in some terrible doubles, plays a terrible game. The moment got to him. There's no way to kind of get around that and, you know, I didn't read his post match stuff, but I'm guessing he would have probably said that. You know, but just a dramatic match. I thought the best part of the match and maybe the tournament. The types of moments that make me proud to be part of the tennis community. Y'all are the other day going to Yobach after she won. And then today, foe winning this match from two sets down starts to go into celebration. Stop. Stop. Because then it crosses his mind that his friend is devastated in Alex Michelson. Stop what he does runs over there, wraps the big guy up and Alex breaks down on foe. Stop it. Breaks down on him and foe just pulls him in tighter and is walking him through that moment. I thought it was just like, that's what sports is. It's like those relationships last a lifetime. I'm still, you know, great friends with a bunch of the guys that I played with and that's the fabric, right? But I think foe deserves a lot of credit for that moment. I hope that Michelson is back in this situation. Many, many times, foe came up with some big serves and some big moments and he was searching. He served so shitty in the first couple of sets. Yeah. And was able to kind of find some rhythm at some point to pull it out. Ben just breaks in the second set. So for those of you that aren't on like a work curfew like me. You're going to be up to a five amp. So what did you see from foe besides gritting it out? What did you see from his game that he started to do well? It was to stack up the sets. It was all, yeah, three or two sets. I'll get the math if it's wrong, it's slightly wrong. He was at like 38% for a serves end. You cannot defend your second serve that often and expect a good result, right? So he found a way to get through service games, turned it. He used a crowd really well at certain points. And not in a shitty way that's disrespectful. Just like, all right, let's get loud. Let's let Alex know the moment. You said it there, right? He can do just a little thing with his finger. That's what he has to do. You have to use every advantage inside of the rules in a respectful way. Assing the crowd to pitch in, totally in balance. Home crowd advantage, which foe has built a relationship with this crowd for years and years and years now. So you got to use that goodwill. You just have to. That's the way it works. That's the home team advantage. That's the, that's the whole deal. So he did that really well. Started finding his range a little bit more, kept some space between himself and Mikkelson. But the serve was everything. Yeah. He was back up to like his normal pace. I think he's like at 61% for the year or something. of back at that level in the fifth set, so just kind of got through it. Yep, third grand slam semi-final of his career, all three at the U.S. Open 2022, 2024, and now 226. Yep. Lost to Carlos and a five-setter, Fritz and a five-setter, and plays the winner of Carlos and Ben. First set, like Ben's doing well, Carlos is missing some, and it actually might be the sloppiest match he's played so far, but then he mixes in that with like the most amazing shots you'll ever see, right, like, you know, the couple in the breaker where he gets the lob-overs, I guess, it's just absurd the amount of athleticism that he has. He hit the shot of the tournament, and I hope people were able to take it in. Breakpoint down first game against his movement, slides, and as he's sliding against his movement, he faces a backhand kind of down the line inside out. There's exactly one person on earth that can make that shot. They're not in this kind of like, that's really cute, right now, unless, unless, and unless I pad for watching, unless Rob up front has some super human skills that I, maybe I didn't react, maybe I didn't realize your game, Rob, but exactly one person on earth can contort themselves and play against their movement and do all that, but Ben has to be a little bit disheartened because I think Carlos gave him some shots, missed some random forehands in the breaker, missed a drop shot halfway up in that, I don't know that I've ever seen that before. But then it's like mixed with his brilliance, you know, so we'll see how this shakes out. I think Carlos has been getting what he wants a lot of times, but Brian Shelton was so intelligent, he goes, "Yeah, you got to like get to neutral, but neutral against Carlos doesn't last long because he gets in the offense right away." And I said this about the, you know, the big three forever, like neutral, if you're a neutral, you're actually kind of behind. And so I think the game planning from Brian Shelton is like spot on, you know, whatever I listened to him talk to the analyst in the box, he was just talking to Mack and Fowler, I find myself nodding along with him. Yeah. You know, like, yeah, that's, and, you know, so he's all over it and it's just a matter of if he's going to get enough looks, he's got to protect to serve a little bit. He's actually breaking Carlos tonight, which is, which is good for him. I think Ben has played the better match overall. I mean, he's got 148. He's got 148. He's got 148 whenever he wants. Did you just go up 31 in the second? Like there are other big servers, like I, I could on days have, like, touched, like numbers like that. Yeah. He hasn't whenever he wants. Whenever he wants. And he's lefty. And to the net earlier, that barely missed and it was 149 and just looked like he barely swung out. Yeah. I mean, he gets, there's some serious power in there. So sure, we'll talk about tomorrow at some point with Carlos and Ben. Yeah. But looking forward to tomorrow, Ken Wing-Jang, okay, what was your, what was your wife saying about the pronunciation of? She said that she looked it up so my wife is Chinese. Well, she's first generation American, but, you know, families from Beijing, and she essentially said that it's kind of a mixture of a different pronunciation, but so chin-win is like or it's quinh-win or it's, and I said, quinh-jie's color, quinh, quinh-jang. Yeah. So basically, she was like, depending on where you are and who's saying it. Yes. Depending on who you are and who's saying it. It's actually all kind of correct and. Yes. Wrong? Yes. So it's her favorite opinion of me. I was right and wrong all at the same time, but if it's from her, I'm wrong. That's pretty funny. But yeah, she, she and Robachina play, and you know, it's late because it just is upcoming on the official tournament website because it's the next match on Ash. That's funny. I think Robachina is the favorite unless she gets up 5-0 at any set, in that case, she's screwed. Yeah, in that case, she's screwed. I think if you have 4-0, you just throw again and make sure it's like a 4-1-5-1 situation in that case. My eight-sleep sleeper pick, Zhang says I took that first one. It's not your sleeper. What? It's Mike. It's. I'm sorry. Do you pronounce Michael Kinwen, too? I do. I actually go back when I went. Oh, yeah, I do. Tell me, Quinwen. Producer Kinwen from now on. All right. Well, I'll come into it. This is going to change the dynamic of the show a little bit. I mean, we can put the lower third right now. Can we, can we, can we put that on, do we have, can we get, like, name labels? Yeah. That's every show. It's going to say, right? Beautiful. Yeah. Great. Great. Great. We'll just have the joke, Rod. For as long as possible. Since you took Zhang. All the people on the grounds won't be yelling producer Mike anymore. Yeah. Let's be yelling producer. It's a shit when? At which point? Is it kind of like paddle and padell? Yeah. Isn't that? Because whenever you say Kinwen, Kinwen, people are like, it's, it's, it's a shit when. I mean, Rod. Yeah. When they say, it's like, that's like this paddle. Do she's right? Every time you say, every time you say paddle, they're like, it's padell. And I'm like, oh, padell. They're like, you mean padell? I'm like, fuck all of you. Like, get out of here. You're so annoying. Get out of here. You're so annoying. You don't like if you nerd. Yeah. Oh my god. And do I have a goff? I like Coco. She's just playing so well. I mean, 501. She obviously likes this matchup. But the way she's playing and how consistently she's playing and not having to worry about her serve, you have to play such good and complete points to even make one right now. Like, she's not, she's negotiating the forehand knocking it down. I've talked about it in other episodes. She's hiding her forehand pretty well when people use pace. She's playing really smart. And it's just like, her movement is insane. You just have to play such quality points every time. Ben has Carlos at 30 all again. Ben is making inroads almost every return game against Carlos. Oh, he's trying to watch right now. It's a long rally. Wow. Ben just missed a long close. He said the lob line like out of no serving Carlos serving 40. Crazy. I'm on blocks and hatching off tomorrow. I want to see if blocks is healthy. Yeah. And hatching is coming off the five setter against 10 short rest turnaround. I think I'd like hatching off in that. Is that a sleeper pick? Did not see the guy versus the see the guy. Yeah, I guess technically a sleeper. Technically a sleeper pick. Pretty sick. Can win. I mean, I'm here for it. Yeah. It's very of Vin Diesel. Alex Verif. He look like. It's very of Vin Diesel in the last match. I did walk past Vin Diesel in the players lounge after his five hour and. Yeah. Whatever. How many minutes and. Can confirm he was upright. Can confirm he was upright and walking on his own. Oh, my God. Yeah. Alex Verif. Because he's fresher. Who thought we'd be saying that after the first two rounds? Yeah, the first two rounds. What was that like two years ago? That was. We've been in New York for eight months. Yeah. It's. I actually live in this car now. I play that exo against Roger. Yeah. In May. Twenty five. Twenty five. It was in May. Yeah. It was in May. Anyways, that's all I got. What else. What else we're looking at? We're going to go watch some wheelchair test tomorrow. We'll be around the grounds. Everyone should go watch. Yes. The wheelchair tennis. I'm so excited. Amazing athletes. You have to go watch it. It is phenomenal. Thanks, Cadillac. Official vehicle of the US Open. Yeah. This is a very new one. Look at that one. Buzz the tower a little bit. Whatever that was. Garbage truck. It's garbage truck. Yeah. We've been here so long. I've watched the local news enough that I know that they have a fine coming. If you're not using the local trash cans. As of today. So I really hope everyone's using their local trash cans. This has been a quick serve. Brought to you by ServiceNow. Great stuff. Producer. I have my dream job. But even dream jobs have not so dreamy parts. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialist come in. They don't just tell you what to do about your busy work. They actually do it. To learn how to put AI to work for people. Visit serviceNow.com.