Venus Williams of the United States celebrates after defeating Francesca Schiavone of Italy, 7-6 (5), 6-4, in their quarter-final match at the US Open tennis tournament yesterday. (Photo: AP)
NEW YORK, USA — Stanislas Wawrinka beat Sam Querrey in five sets to put two Swiss men in a Grand Slam quarter-finals for the first time in the Opens -- and keep the Americans out of the US Open quarters for the second straight year. After waiting out that nearly 4 1/2-hour match, Venus Williams defeated French Open champion Francesca Schiavone of Italy, 7-6 (5), 6-4, to reach her first Grand Slam semi-final since last year's Wimbledon.
Wawrinka won, 7-6 (9), 6-7 (5), 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, yesterday to join a countryman whose presence this deep in a major tournament is just assumed: Roger Federer. Not so for Wawrinka. The 25-year-old had been 0-5 in the round of 16 at Grand Slams.
The US men, meanwhile, had at least one quarter-finalist at their home major each of the first 41 years of the Open era. That changed in 2009, and now it's happened again.
Querrey himself is still searching for his first Grand Slam quarterfinal berth. He had his chances yesterday. So did the 25th-seeded Wawrinka, as momentum swung back and forth as quickly as the wind whipped around Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Williams, seeded third, and the sixth-seeded Schiavone struggled to hold serve: There were nine breaks in 23 games. Williams failed to serve out the match in the second set, then proceeded to break the Italian to clinch the victory.
No 20 Querrey wasted three break points in the third game of the final set, which seemed headed to another tiebreaker until Wawrinka made one final push leading 5-4.
Querrey fought off one match point with a lob that was just high enough to force deuce. But after Querrey hit a forehand into the net, Wawrinka made the most of his second chance.
This goes down as the worst year for American men in Grand Slam events. They had only one quarter-finalist at the four major tournaments: Andy Roddick at the Australian Open.
In the first two sets, each player went up 3-0 to start a tiebreaker only to go on to lose it.
With Wawrinka upsetting fourth-seeded Andy Murray in the third round, the draw seemed to be opening up for Querrey to make a deep run. His quarter of the bracket didn't have a top-10 seed left.
Wawrinka will next face Mikhail Youzhny, who briefly slowed Spain's march through the US Open bracket.
The 12th-seeded Russian beat Tommy Robredo, the lowest-ranked man left in the draw, 7-5, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4. The 41st-ranked Robredo was one of a record six Spanish men to reach the fourth round at Flushing Meadows.
Two will make the quarters: No 1 Rafael Nadal faced 23rd-seeded Feliciano Lopez and eighth-seeded Fernando Verdasco took on No 10 David Ferrer in a pair of all-Spanish match-ups last night.
Williams will next face the winner of yesterday's second women's quarter-final: No 2 Kim Clijsters, the defending champion, against No 5 Sam Stosur.
