Juan Martin del Potro to face Roger Federer in last eight

Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro stunned Roger Federer in four sets to reach the US Open semi-finals.

“For me it’s an important victory, last two matches winning in straight sets is very good news for me”.

Del Potro admitted after Monday’s match that he was considering retiring in the second set.

If you do, you’ll have to answer Pliskova. “It was an unbelievable atmosphere”.

It was a tricky 10 days in NY for the five-time victor, having been taken the distance by Frances Tiafoe and Mikhail Youzhny in his opening two matches before crashing out to Del Potro in the quarter-finals.

While the reemergence of del Potro is a terrific story, his performance did nix the Federer-Nadal semifinal fans were eying all tournament. “It’s great to see him back on tour”, Federer said. “That’s what he came back for, to get crowd support the way he got it. We could even hear it on center court”.

The Argentine beat both Nadal and Federer en route to US Open success in 2009 and he will have to do so again after inflicting a first Grand Slam defeat of the year on the Swiss great who claimed the titles in Melbourne and at Wimbledon.

For the 19-time Grand Slam champion, Federer, it was the fourth loss. On the men’s side, prominent players like Novak Djokovic, Stan Wawrinka, and Andy Murray pulled out with injury. “Feel like I would probably win it somehow”, Federer said.

“That’s something that didn’t happen before and is something odd, because we have played a couple of times in all the important events of the world”. “I expected it because it’s everywhere like this for him”.

“We always had a good relationship”.

“I don’t know what the turning point was, maybe I got lucky”, he said. “I wish him all the best”. I like to do that. “When I feel that confidence to do my best shots, I know I can be risky for all the guys”. Del Potro has won seven of his last eight matches on hard court. Nadal joked. “We don’t want to talk these kind of things before important match. We’re not playing every day in an atmosphere like this”, Thiem said.

Kohlschreiber put up more of a fight in the third, but Federer grabbed the crucial break in the 11th game before serving out for the match. Nadal plays Amdrey Rublev in another quarterfinal on Wednesday afternoon. “To be once again in the semi-finals in NY means a lot to me”.