2026 US OPEN RECAP DAY 9: Gauff & Rybakina Advance, Zverev Rolls & Quarterfinals Preview

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To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Quick Serve, brought to you by ServiceNow. We are on the Cadillac Studio, Escalade IQ. Mike? Tell us more about it. Did you know there's a premium AKG sound system in here? And with compatible Dolby Atmos music, the sound feels like it's surrounding you, not just coming from the speakers, which is something we knew about today. One thing that we didn't know about today, when I last saw you at 4:00, you did not have that haircut. Yeah. So, one of the problems with my life is that the sides of my hair grow at about a 4x rate of the top of my head. Okay. That's the problem these days. Okay. So, when it goes like this, it's a two-fold problem. Yeah. All right. It goes wider and poofier, and the bald spots become more prominent. Right? So, what I tried to do, and maybe it was a fucking swing. I tried to tighten it up so the bald look less bald. I mean, honestly, the math, math. The math, math. It looks pretty good. Yeah. I'm wondering, you know, did you show the barber this photo of. Oh, barber? Yeah. I'm my barber. You did this? No way. You looked in the mirror and you didn't want the Tobey Maguire from Brothers? I mean, I would love that. He doesn't need it. He doesn't need it? He's not trying to cover up his weaknesses. Or you want Jim Carrey from Be My Silver Thug? Yeah. See, all of these people you're showing me have full lettuce. They're not dealing. They don't know my problems. Who, Tom Hanks? He doesn't know my problems. Luckily, Sean's putting these up on screen, so. You full-haired motherfucker. You don't know my problems. I'm right behind you. Oh, sorry. Sorry. No, that's fine. Sorry. I'm glad we talked about it. Yeah. I'm sweating. I'm glad there's premium AKG. It sounds so sweet. Yeah. I got a lot of people who said I look like Forrest Gump. Did you? Yeah. That seemed to be the first one off the thing. Oh, man. Well, too bad there's nobody named Jenny in the draw. So. You got. Yeah. But I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. Even 72 hours ago, we were going, Zverev, is he going to be able to stand up? Like, is he fully baked because he spent so much time on court? All of a sudden, you fast forward, and on his half of the draw, I think Caboli goes down, Fritz goes down, you know, Blocks takes out Caboli and then wins again. Gia and Van de Zandskulp are all of a sudden kind of where he needs to go. Now he's the overwhelming favorite in that section of the draw. By a wide margin, and we did something on ESPN tonight where the combined ranking of the potential path, the lowest combined ranking of the last five rounds for Zverev here could be 157, max would be 216. That's crazy. The draw is open. For context, I thought of one tournament just off the top of my head, and it's amazing having, like, the ESPN research department. Everyone's just so good at their jobs. I'm, like, unreal and motivated. Like, it's crazy. Like, fans are great. We found Andre's last five opponents in 94 is just one I thought of off the top of my head where I remember him having, like, a stiff draw, like, the entire way. Was 46 or 47? Wow. Zverev, 216. So, and it's going to annoy me. It's going to really annoy me when someone says, like, oh, the draw, he didn't, you know, if he makes finals, he didn't play anyone. I'm, like, no, he survived. He survived long enough to play well, and then once he found his form, he had a path, right? So, I don't think I want to hear that. And the only reason that I say that is Hatchinov's down at 50. He's not someone who's 50 in the world. He plays blocks now. Blocks said in his post-match press conference that he has an injury. Yeah. Like, he said he thought about retiring in that match. Yeah, he had a medical timeout at 3-2 in the first set with rib pain and then was able to take, you know, some anti-inflammatories and I guess kicked in late in the third. He was able to outlast it. Yeah. So, he's the highest person left in that section. Ranked 34, seeded 28, and he's hurt. Next one's Hatchinov, who's ranked 50 but isn't 50. Like, he's, you know, he's obviously fully accomplished. And then you got the Vendeezy, you know, making his second quarterfinal at the U.S. Open. 2021, he lost to Medvedev. May have won a set and then got drilled the other three sets, I think. But, I mean, it is all of a sudden, like, open season path for, for Zverev to the final. Well, I, but, I would. You still have to play the player, like, and I also want to say this, when I say open draw, Yeah. like, we say it, and it's not disrespectful, there's 128 experts that start this tournament in the draw. Yeah. It's just the best version of Zverev versus the best version of these players ranked 70. Zverev should make the final. Yeah. Right? Or, if it's not 128 experts, it's 100 experts and 28 soon-to-be experts. Right? So, like, there's no disrespect there. It's purely based on, you know, the data set and what we know of, of, of Sasha. The respect lies there. The disrespect does not lie with the rest of the draw. If, if you're looking at the time that he had on court, the first two matches, right? And everyone was making a big deal of it. Yeah. It was a lot. And then he's kind of. It was a big deal. He's, he's, he's made up, he's made up ground, per se, in the last two matches. 100%. But then you look at Karen, you look at, you know, VDZ went five hours and 13 minutes tonight. Fourth longest match in U.S. Open history. Everyone else is kind of now, they're, they're kind of stacking the time at the wrong time. You know, in comparison. Yeah. All of a sudden, in his section, you're, you're absolutely right. You look at Hatchinov, five hours, battle against Tien. You look at Vendeezy, five hours, battle against Gia. Blox has an injury that he's carrying. Zverev is, is, is going to be the healthiest, most rested person in this section of the draw, potentially. That's crazy. Crazy. And he had to claw back some time because of the turnaround time for the U.S. Open. Mm-hmm. You can't. You cannot finish, like, you, you know, he's been scheduled last because he's had to be because how long his matches went. Mm-hmm. But at some point, they have to flip it and play him earlier. Yeah. You have to at some point. So he had to claw back that time. He did a great job doing it against, doing it against Tabillo and then tonight against Dartery. By the way, Dartery, fun. Had a good time. This, this thing. The hand, the hand. To the umpire. Broke me. Hilarious. This, this thing was. It was fantastic. Dude, they. Made 10 quarter finals this year, by the way. Yeah, we were, we were looking at it. 10 quarters. He's done a great job. I think he's done, like, four or five finals. 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. Technology enables coaches and players to track their fitness in an entirely new way and make changes as a result. When it comes down to it, sleep fitness is at the core of training. And 8Sleep is revolutionizing how athletes manage their sleep and recovery. 8Sleep's pod is a smart mattress cover that tracks and adjusts your sleep temperature to keep you cool and promote up to 34% more deep sleep. That's the difference between waking up foggy and waking up actually rested before your next match. 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Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Jägermeister liqueur, 35% alcohol by volume. Imported by Mass Jägermeister U.S. White Plains, New York. All right, back to the show. Come back, Queen Wynn. Bro. Zhang. Iga up 5-0 on the heels of Maddie being up 5-0 against her. And Iga kind of fell apart a little bit. She said it. She was like, I just started missing balls. And that's kind of been a, it's been a, used to be able to bank on Iga. And listen, if you're, before I get to this criticism, if you listen to the show, if you listen on ESPN, I have an outsized amount of respect for what Iga has accomplished in her career. I'm a fan of hers. I think she's like criminally underreported on. Right. And Iga for the last two years, even with the Wimbledon title, the difference is it's, there's been inconsistencies where she has patches in matches where the game goes off and she looks at her box and it's like, it's a little panicked at times. And it's unpredictable, really. Like you can say, she looked great. She looked great. She looked great. And then all of a sudden it's like, where did that come from? Right. But credit to Queen Wynn. I mean, something I never thought I would see in my lifetime again. Is a qualifier winning a grand slam after. I mean, it's crazy. Never, ever, ever. I'm like, that's the craziest, maybe the craziest thing I've ever seen in tennis. And now we have an Olympic gold medalist from 24 who is in that position. Now credit to her, you know, EGA, you know, we kind of have to figure that thing out. She had a good summer, obviously the winning Canada, but we judge her. She judges herself. Against her own shadow. Yeah. Right. Six majors, dominant force in tennis, multiple time year end number one. She's probably going to be doing some searching and it wasn't the tennis going into this match. Like it wasn't tennis based. She's been playing well for five weeks now. So it is something else, but credit to Queen Wynn. Good to see her back. You could see, and rightfully so, how much joy she had in that moment going through qualities. You know, she, she's here for the real deal. She's the, uh, she's the first qualifier or lucky loser to reach the US Open quarterfinals since Raducanu did in 2021. Yeah. I mean, there's, everything's going to be, everything's going to be first. Like Raducanu kind of ruined that stat forever. Yeah. Yeah. Like win it. Oh, okay. Or there, yeah, there's no competition. She's the first qualifier to win the tournament. Yeah. Since 2021. Since 2021. Oh, okay. Oh, Bob. Yeah. Uh, Rabakina is, she looks, I mean, talk about, like, I don't know. I thought she was so hurt after Cincinnati and, like, she wasn't practicing. I completely ignored her in our draw show because I didn't, I thought there was a 50-50 shot. She wouldn't, wasn't going to take the court. I mean, your eight sleep, your eight sleep sleeper pick was just whoever was playing her because you were so concerned about. We didn't know. Like, there was no feedback. I don't know that she played any practice sets. There was nothing out there. And she has looked fantastic. And all of a sudden, I mean, she, we talked about, I talked about last night how Osaka was going to stress. to test that heel, it was the other way around. was carrying like a calf achilles situation like squatting down she had taped and she talked about it after her last match saying it's something that's kind of been uh bothering me not like a full-on injury but something that i just can't quite shake um and i said that osaka had the ability to really stress test the injury for rabakuna it ended up being completely flipped yeah it was the other way around rabakuna has looked phenomenal she is beating a qualifier it's hard to call jenga qualifier yeah you know whatever but a qualifier away from being the number one player in the world that's wild yeah that's wild uh so props to her because i i mean it's so funny how tennis works all right rabakuna has forever had an average record in new york i think this is the furthest she's ever gotten oh it is yeah and was hobbled playing on one foot last time you saw her like working on her footwork to avoid pressure so obviously that means she's got a lot of pressure on her footwork it's going to be her best result and she's going to sail i don't know up is down down is up here we are here we are um do you have i just there's something i wanted to ask you all day yes do you have a stat of the day i do have a stat of the day i knew you would brought to you by our friends at service now there you go 409 do you have an idea of what that would be no that is the total points played in the match between vdz and jia which is now the most points ever played in u.s open history oh surpassing yep surpassing edberg and chang from 1992 which was also the number two longest match of all time dan evans karen atchanoff is the longest alcares center number three longest match this is now the number four but yeah 409 total points how about if i'm not mistaken unless there was something weird how about edberg playing that match against chang and then having to come back and play the next day because that was they used to do super saturday and then oh my gosh really yeah but i mean i i never like i've never i never talked about this but like the year that i won we played i played friday saturday and sunday it says the thing i had written said he had he won it two days later but we can look we can look at them i don't know if that's true they used to play super saturday oh my gosh i mean unless they just skip super saturday for the rest of the season i don't know if that's true i don't know if that's true i don't the first time ever ever yeah i mean we're gonna look it up right now do it i don't care yeah yeah they did yeah super saturday go take your fucking research and shove it i that was aggressive that was aggressive sorry people in the comments get mad i don't think they know my like sense of you they're like he told me i'm like no they're just like bullshit oh man uh yeah so that was uh 409 that's pretty cool 49 that's a lot credit to him man down two sets i was saying on air that it's like the what if game in in in sports is like a never-ending thing like if even like for chuckers or golf hackers or whatever it is you play golf you can have the best round of your life you're like man that one shot if i would be that one putt like jia jia lucky loser doesn't when when when casper pulls out it's like sweet money opportunity at that point you tell him he's making the fourth round he is pumped you know this is like this is game changer if he would have won today he would have almost matched his career high or sorry his total career prize money in one tournament i think it was 801 for his career had he pulled that out in one i don't know he's you know gotten through that that in three sets or four sets he would have won 780 for this tournament i know and he had a match point but he still he he uh nearly doubled his his year total yeah that's not too bad point being a week ago he would have been ecstatic and walking off that court i bet he was like gosh what if you know what if it just never ends there's always something else out there in sports that's wild i know well one thing because we uh we shot before the end of it last night and i think before we go into the uh order of play for tomorrow yeah um you know she looked great she's looked great so far i'm happy for her she looks very confident yeah this is she's hitting the ball well it's a great result it's been a i think a challenging year for for for emma um it's great to see her back in the mix um she played great against cal and sky i i didn't know i thought that was like a coin flip um yeah she she she was great i think everyone's incredibly happy for her she is so well liked in the locker room yeah everyone loves her you don't hear a bad word about her ever uh i like that um bad news is she plays pagula she's oh and four against jess correct um you know uh saba sabalenka all of a sudden like we're talking about favorites she's still not like people aren't like she's gonna win the tournament no like it's it's kind of ridiculous it's absurd it's kind of ridiculous uh plays noskova obviously wimbledon champion uh big foe against alex mickelson tomorrow sounds like bittersweet i know i i'm i'm calling it tomorrow are you really yeah in the afternoon i really want to call it and also it's like you i just i i just want both of them to go as far as possible all the time yeah um i really really really like both of them um it's gonna be interesting they both like getting forward we're gonna see a lot of net play uh you know mickelson's been playing great he's been serving this tournament so i know foe on paper is like a heavy favorite i think this is going to be a very very competitive match okay yeah i think i think mickelson's in with a shot i think foe probably realizes that and respects that uh as well and then shelton alcarez you think carlos knows who he's playing yet oh man yeah he's maybe he doesn't know who won the match yesterday still it's gonna be it's gonna be shocking you'll walk out and be like ben it's gonna be a shock when carlos rocks up expecting to play medley and someone has to inform that medley's no longer in the tournament and he's was wrong oh man that will be an absolute blockbuster uh tomorrow night second on night match i can't wait for that ben has to disrupt like he has to go big on the second serve a lot of the things the chips and stuff those are out of play against carlos um so i'm curious to see how he goes about uh strategy i think he has to buzz the tower with big first serves body blows i think he just has to do that yeah it's like who else of the risk factor right like who else can from a from a lefty go 145 buzz the tower like he doesn't see that yeah like you know ben has the serve he has to use it he has to use his disrupting weapon against carlos i i think to have to have a real shot um but i don't know what else we got why we you know it's the end of a round we're heading into a new one we have our eight sleep sleeper readjust given the rib injury i mean you're gonna stick with blocks keep grinding no i'm not uh hatching off i mean my hatching off 50 blocks is seated 28 i can take hatching off over blocks i mean it's you can you can stick with blocks i think it's your sleeper pick however you want you just you i don't want to okay you can do hatching off over block it's my show i'm gonna stick with jang are you gonna try to get away with that i'm still i still i've been on jang this whole time okay since the very first time i've been on jang since the very first time i've been on jang since the very beginning i see what you've been i've been a big jang fan all right yeah okay great you can keep repeating yourself yeah and check the tape there's about there's about 17 people that are screaming right now somewhere you did pick jang as your sleeper pick yep what was the first name of the jang that you picked for your sleeper pick i mean i don't think that's uh relevant i don't think it's relevant simple question jang was the jang you picked it was it was michael in the women's draw it was michael jang it was that chin way it was michael jang but now you're now i'm i'm just gonna keep going with it i'm gonna keep going with it i wanted to flip the hatching off we'll let you flip isn't this fun it's not a flip it's just a it's just a sidestep to the other jang so now i don't like it i don't like it when you try to like this is this is gonna bother me that is my eighth sleep sleeper pick i'm gonna keep going with it i'm gonna keep going with it i'm gonna keep going with it i do like this i'll tell you that i don't i don't like what you just did there yeah i think it's great for our little show yeah i don't like it love my sleep pod i know well we if you're gonna be calling an early match you need to you need to turn in that is true i'm gonna go night actually from my phone right now and start the whole process you can drop the temp two degrees okay i mean i've been getting a little wake up with like it gives you this little this little vibration wake up what and it builds over the course of like a half hour to wake you up and like get out of here it's just like a gentle nudge that's absurd it's so great and it gets a little warmer like you really yeah it's it's legit you know what wakes me up in the morning police sirens right now or honking buses no i don't hear any of it you don't hear anything because you are i just get maxing your rem rme rm i had a 94 i had a 94 last night you had a 94 did you say rem all right is it we're out of time losing my religion what are we doing shiny happy people what else are we gonna go uh while we're at this uh shout out to the serve newsletter head over to serve podcast Or find us on Substack. Megan has written a roundup of some stories from the first week that deserve a little bit more time in the rotation, including Dane Sweeney's career-changing run and some goodbyes to some greats. So be sure to go over and check that out. Thank you to Cadillac, the official vehicle of the U.S. Open. This is Quick Serve brought to you by ServiceNow. Bye. Can't wear white anymore. What? It's after Labor Day. Thank goodness we got that in there. I have my dream job. They don't just tell you what to do about your busy work. They actually do it. Now, it's your time. We go V! We go V! Ask your prescriber about WeGoVee, some maglutide injection 2.4 milligrams, a GLP-1. Call 1-833-4WEGOVEE or visit WeGoVee.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about WeGoVee. Why wait? We. Go. V. You want to impress them on a first date, but also play it cool. So what do you do? I'm Rufy Thorpe, and I wrote and read a real love story about a hinge couple that navigated exactly that. 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