NEW YORK—It was going to be tough for Sam Querrey and Kevin Anderson to follow Venus Williams and Petra Kvitova in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday night.
Williams and Kvitova, two beloved fan favorites, had just engaged in a brilliant, emotional, back-and-forth tussle that had the New York fans on the edges of their seats.
The men weren’t going to top that, but it didn’t matter much to them: Each was interested in as little drama as possible, as long as it meant a berth in the US Open semifinals.
As it turned out, the second night match wasn’t without its fair share of drama and theatrics, though. There were plenty of twists and turns and plot twists in Anderson’s 7-6 (5), 6-7 (9), 6-3, 7-6 (7) win, which concluded at 1:52 a.m. on Wednesday morning.
In the opening set, the 31-year-old Anderson trailed 2-5 in the tiebreaker before reeling off the next five points to take it. The South African jumped out to a 4-2 lead in the second, but Querrey took the next three games for a 5-4 lead. It went to a tiebreaker again—and again, the 17th-seeded American struggled to close. Querrey failed to convert seven set points—Anderson won seven of eight points to come back, and let a set point of his own slip away—before finally securing it 11-9.