US Open 2018: Sloane Stephens shrugs off the mounting pressure to ease past Victoria Azarenka

Sloane Stephens is the highest ranked player left in the women’s singles at the US Open, but if the defending champion is feeling any pressure it is hardly showing. Stephens eased into the fourth round here on Friday by beating Victoria Azarenka 6-3, 6-4 in a match that demonstrated many of the world No 3’s outstanding qualities.

There is probably no other current player who can match Stephens’ fluency of movement and apparently effortless power. The 25-year-old American glides across the court with such ease that she rarely looks hurried and packs a big punch on both flanks. Simona Halep is an equally outstanding athlete, but it is Stephens’ languid movement that sets her apart.

Azarenka is one of the game’s big hitters, but the former world No 1 was regularly pressured into mistakes by the speed and depth of Stephens’ shots. The 29-year-old Belarusian pushed hard in the second set in particular, but Stephens held firm.

“When things got tough I just hung in there,” Stephens said afterwards. “I battled as hard as I could. I ran for every ball and kept fighting.”

When Stephens won her first Grand Slam title here last year she was just 69 days into a comeback following an 11-month break because of foot surgery. She was No 83 in the world at the time, having been ranked as low as No 957 only six weeks before the start of the tournament.

Since then it has tended to be feast or famine for the American, who lost all six matches she played at the end of last year following her victory here but won the Miami Open in the spring and finished runner-up at the French Open to Halep. Early defeats here for Halep and Caroline Wozniacki have left her as the highest ranked player left in the field.

Azarenka meanwhile took 13 months out of the game when she gave birth to her first child at the end of 2016. She returned to competition last summer but has had a stop-start comeback, mainly because she became embroiled in a custody battle with her son’s father.

Since her return there have been flashes of Azarenka’s former excellence, particularly when she reached the semi-finals at Indian Wells in March, but in her nine subsequent tournaments she has won two matches in a row only once. Currently ranked No 79 in the world, she needed a wild card to play here.

After several days of high heat and humidity, the conditions were much more agreeable for the players. The skies were overcast and at 25C the temperature was 10 degrees cooler than it had been earlier in the week.

Stephens had won both her previous meetings with Azarenka this year, at Indian Wells and Miami, and was soon on course for a hat-trick.

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At 1-1 Azarenka dropped serve for the first time with a double fault. The Belarusian’s only break point opportunity of the opening set came three games later, but she wasted it with a forehand unforced error. When Azarenka served at 3-5 her forehand went into meltdown as two successive unforced errors handed Stephens a break to love.

The second set was much tighter. Another careless missed forehand by Azarenka gave Stephens a break in the fourth game, but the Belarusian fought back immediately, a double fault handing the former Australian Open champion her first break of serve.

At 3-3 the roof was shut because of rain, giving the players a brief chance to capture breath. On the resumption there was another exchange of breaks. Azarenka edged in front with some crunching service returns, only to lose the advantage in the following game when two successive missed backhands handed the break back to Stephens.

Azarenka had a chance to make it four breaks of serve in five games at 4-4, but, crucially, Stephens saved the day with a big forehand. Serving at 4-5 and 15-40 in the next game, Azarenka could only watch as Stephens chased down a drop shot and smacked a forehand cross-court winner.

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Stephens thought the rain break and shutting the roof had helped her. “It felt like a night match with the lights on,” she said. “I’ve never played under this roof, so it was super-cool. The man upstairs was looking out for me because I got in, changed my shirt and I think that helped me a lot. I was thankful for the break.”

Asked how the match had become closer in the second set, Stephens said: “I was playing a former Grand Slam champion and I think she raised her level, but I knew that was going to happen. Sometimes things got a little tight. I just had to stay in it.”

Stephens will now play Elise Mertens, who beat Barbora Strycova 6-3, 7-6 to extend her fine run in Grand Slam tournaments this year. The Belgian, who had never won a match here until this week, reached the semi-finals of this year’s Australian Open, the fourth round at the French Open and the third round at Wimbledon.

Mertens beat Stephens in straight sets when they met in Cincinnati earlier this month, but the American is likely to be a tougher opponent on Sunday.

Elina Svitolina, the world No 7, reached the fourth round for the second year in a row when she beat Qiang Wang 6-4, 6-4. The Ukrainian now plays Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova, who beat Ekaterina Makarova 4-6, 6-1, 6-2.