Casper Ruud and Matteo Berrettini will meet for the third time at a Grand Slam after both won extended matches on Sunday to reach the US Open quarter-finals.
Fifth seed Ruud stayed cool while lucky loser opponent Corentin Moutet melted down in the heat and humidity, with the agitated Frenchman warned repeatedly for taking too long between serves.
The Norwegian broke fresh ground for his country as the first to get this far at a major thanks to his 6-1, 6-2, 6-7(4), 6-2 victory in just under three and a half hours.
2021 Wimbledon finalist Mattteo Berrettini, who had to drop out of Wimbledon due to a positive COVID test, needed just shy of four hours to go past Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina 3-6, 7-6(2), 6-3, 4-6, 6-2.
Ruud and Berrettini have split their first two encounters at the Grand Slam level, with the Italian winning their last one here a year ago in the third round.
Ruud beat the Roman at Roland Garros three years ago.
“I’m happy that I didn’t need to play over four hours today,” Rudd said of his win over Moutet.
“I’ll take care of the rest of the day off and the day off tomorrow and be ready for the quarter-final.
The winner said he was more concerned about beating the heat and humidity than noticing the lamentations of his dis-satisfied opponent.
“I need to focus a lot on myself and keeping my head cool. I’m sweating a lot, so it takes a lot of energy for me to just always keep my hands and everything dry.
“So I didn’t think too much about what happened, you know, around. I just tried to stay in the zone.”
The Norwegian defeated Moutet, first lucky loser to get to the fourth round here with 43 winners and 39 unforced errors, breaking seven of his 17 chances.
“Corentin is a fun player to watch, he can come up with unbelievable trick shots. He’s a fun player and a funny guy. It was a fun match in the end.”
Moutet was held to 36 winners and 39 unforced, breaking his seeded opponent only once.
“I didn’t play really good. I can do much better,” the French player said.
“I was a bit tired from the six matches before, for sure. That’s why it was tough to keep the intensity and be good on my legs, good on the running part.”
Ruud will hope to keep up his momentum against Berrettini after winning their last match, the late July final in Gstaad.
“I will try to play my game. I’ll try to memorise what I did well or what I didn’t do well in our past meetings.”
Berrettini said he had to fight to overcome a poor start as he trailed Davidovich Fokina a set and a break.
The Italian turned it around, ending with 18 aces and nearly 50 winners and breaking six times.
“He was playing a really good level of tennis and I wasn’t feeling bad.
“He was just playing better than me but I kept believing in my game, my strokes.
“I took the second set in a tiebreak, that was the key of the match. Two sets to love down would have been tougher.”
Berrettini called the contest “a fight (with) ups and downs. A lot of humidity today. I was sweating a lot.”
Main photo:- Matteo Berrettini in action at US Open 2022 by Roger Parker International Sports Fotos Ltd
