Defending US Open champion Carlos Alcaraz produced a typically ruthless display to dismantle Alexander Zverev and advance to the semi-finals at Flushing Meadows on Wednesday.
The top seed took all four of the break points available to him while saving each of the five he faced in a 6-3 6-2 6-4 victory, achieving the result in exactly two-and-a-half hours.
Zverev - who missed last year's US Open due to a serious ankle injury - gave it his all in unforgiving conditions and fought on following an apparent hamstring injury, but he won just 28% of points behind his second serve.
Alcaraz's success saw the Spaniard register a 33rd Grand Slam win in a row after taking the first set, while in the open era, only Bjorn Borg (84.4%) had a better win rate at Grand Slams than the Wimbledon champion (83.7%) before turning 21.
Standing in Alcaraz's way of a place in the showpiece event is 2020 winner Daniil Medvedev, who came through a gruelling battle against compatriot and good friend Andrey Rublev earlier in the day.
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Heading into the US Open, Rublev's record read eight defeats from eight Grand Slam quarter-final appearances, and the 25-year-old was unable to shake that hoodoo at Arthur Ashe Stadium, as Medvedev won 6-4 6-3 6-4 in two hours and 48 minutes.
The third seed went a break down in all three sets against Rublev, but he extraordinarily managed to fight back on each occasion before being met with staunch Rublev resilience in the dying embers of the match.
The eighth seed saved four match points against Medvedev - who was visibly struggling with the heat and said into a camera that "one player is going to die" in such conditions - but the 27-year-old finally got the job done on his fifth opportunity to close out the contest.
With that loss, Rublev has now made unwanted history as the first male player in the Open Era to lose each of their first nine Grand Slam quarter-finals, while Medvedev will compete in the last four for the fourth time.
While Medvedev was pushed to the limit in his quarter-final with Rublev, women's second seed Aryna Sabalenka breezed past Chinese 23rd seed Zheng Qinwen in Wednesday's opening match, taking just one hour and 13 minutes to win 6-1 6-4.
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Right from the off, the big-hitting Sabalenka overwhelmed Qinwen and won each of the first five games in a 27-minute first set, before the Chinese player managed to hold her own more in the second set.
However, it was a fruitless endeavour against Sabalenka, who did not face a single break point as she reached her fourth Grand Slam semi of the year, becoming the first woman since Serena Williams in 2016 to do so.
Aiming to defy the odds and set up a possible all-American final with Coco Gauff will be Madison Keys, who made light work of her quarter-final against Wimbledon winner Marketa Vondrousova, triumphing 6-1 6-4 in 86 minutes.
Vondrousova was visibly struggling with an arm injury during her last-16 win over Peyton Stearns and tearfully withdrew from the women's doubles before her clash with Keys, who raced into a 5-0 first-set advantage.
Vondrousova kept Keys at bay in the second set before the American broke for a 5-4 lead and survived a brief scare to serve out the match, thereby reaching her first Grand Slam semi-final since the 2022 Australian Open.
Ben Knapton
