Roger Federer moved one step closer to finally winning his 18th Grand Slam title when he advanced to the quarterfinals of the 2014 U.S. Open with a straight-set 6-4, 6-3, 6-2 win against Roberto Bautista Agut on Tuesday at the Arthur Ashe Stadium.
With the victory, Federer arranged an interesting quarter-final match against Gael Monfils, who scored a hard-earned 7-5, 7-6 (6), 7-5 victory against Grigor Dimitrov in their fourth-round showdown.
Monfils moved also moved closer to finally reaching a final of a Grand Slam event for the first time, and most experts are saying that the 20th-seeded Frenchman could pull off more surprises in the upcoming days.
Monfils, who has not dropped as set in the tournament, played down talks about his improvement this year, humbly saying that he was just playing solid tennis as of late.
"I'm the same. So I will say I'm a bit luckier than I was maybe sometime in the past," Monfils said via ESPN. "I think I haven't changed a lot, to be honest. I haven't changed a lot. I just play maybe solid today, but I'm still the same."
The seventh-seeded Dimitrov, who was a favored to win heading into their showdown, expressed frustration after the match, saying that he was not even close to his best shape on Tuesday.
"I think, first of all, it was a very poor match for me. I don't know. Where should I begin? Just a bad match for me," Dimitrov said via the 2014 US Open website. "Didn't play as close to the way I wanted to, and I think it was a great stage for me to come out on there on the center court and perform my best. Just everything went the opposite way today."
On the women's side, unseeded Peng Shuai of China continues to surprise as she advanced to the semifinals with a 6-2, 6-1 win against Belinda Bencic. The 28-year-old Chinese earned a semi-final spot in a Grand Slam event for the first time in her career.
Visit this link for the results of Tuesday's matches and this link for match highlights. The complete schedule for Wednesday can be seen here and the updated brackets through this link.
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