Coco Gauff joined Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz on the US Open scrapheap on Sunday as the defending champion crashed out to Emma Navarro in a blizzard of mistakes.
Third-ranked Gauff slumped to a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 fourth round defeat on the back of 19 double faults and 60 unforced errors.
The 20-year-old’s exit means Serena Williams remains the last woman to successfully defend the US Open title back in 2014.
“I lost in the first round the last two years and now to be making the quarter-finals is pretty insane,” said American Navarro who will face Spain’s Paula Badosa for a place in the semi-finals.
“This is the city I was born in and it feels so special to be playing here. Coco is an amazing player. I have a ton of respect for her and I know she’s going to come back here and win this thing again.”
Gauff’s loss was another bodyblow to the season’s final Grand Slam event after defending men’s champion Djokovic was knocked out in the third round in his earliest exit since 2006.
Fellow crowd-pleaser Alcaraz, the 2022 winner in New York and reigning French Open and Wimbledon champion, was stunned in the second round.
Navarro had defeated Gauff at Wimbledon in July and was dominant again on Sunday from the outset.
The 23-year-old broke for 4-2 in the first set and sealed the opener in the ninth game where one rally stretched to 27 shots.
Navarro stretched to a 4-3 lead in the second set with another break after Gauff had committed her eighth double fault of the tie.
However, Gauff, who had dropped the first set in her third round win against Elina Svitolina, hit back to reel off the next three games and level the match.
It was just a brief respite for the champion as she served up three more double faults in the third game of the decider to slip a crucial break down again.
Badosa, who was also born in New York, reached her first US Open quarter-final with a 6-1, 6-2 win over China’s Wang Yafan.
Despite the one-sided scoreline, the first two games took 17 minutes. Badosa saved all eight break points she faced.
“It was so humid I thought I was going to die,” said the 26-year-old. “I knew she was tough but I’m tougher.”
Meanwhile, Alexander Zverev, who blew a two sets lead to lose the 2020 final to Dominic Thiem, will look to exploit the gaping hole left in the bottom half of the men’s draw by the defeat of four-time champion Djokovic.
The fourth-ranked German takes on unseeded American Brandon Nakashima.
If Zverev makes the quarter-finals for a fourth time, he will take on US 12th seed Taylor Fritz who knocked out 2022 runner-up and eighth-ranked Casper Ruud 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-2.
Fritz fired 24 aces past Ruud, avenging a last-16 defeat to the Norwegian at the French Open, to reach his third Grand Slam quarter-final of the year.
Alexei Popyrin, the 28th-ranked Australian who shocked 24-time major winner Djokovic, has yet to make a Slam quarter-final.
– ‘Stay patient’ –
He takes on flamboyant Frances Tiafoe, the 20th-ranked shot-maker who made the semi-finals in 2022 and last-eight 12 months ago.
With Djokovic and Alcaraz eliminated, home fans are dreaming of a first American men’s Grand Slam champion since Andy Roddick captured the US Open in 2003.
Tiafoe was one of four American men to have made the last 16.
Waiting in the quarter-finals will be Grigor Dimitrov, the ninth-seeded Bulgarian who put out Russian sixth seed Andrey Rublev 6-3, 7-6 (7/3), 1-6, 3-6, 6-3.
Dimitrov last made the quarter-finals in 2019 when he defeated Roger Federer in five sets in what proved to be the Swiss legend’s final appearance in New York.
“I was playing fairly good today in the first two sets,” said 33-year-old Dimitrov, the oldest player left in the men’s draw.
“But for some reason my body got tired a little bit and he wasn’t going to give up the match. I had stay patient.”
Women’s second seed and Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka, runner-up to Gauff in New York last year, meets Belgium’s Elise Mertens.
The night session on Arthur Ashe Stadium concludes with China’s Zheng Qinwen facing Donna Vekic of Croatia in a rematch of the Olympic Games final.
Zheng has unleashed a tournament-leading 39 aces over three rounds at this year’s US Open.
dj/sev
