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Like other building projects at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, which sits atop soft, unstable soil, the new Louis Armstrong Stadium needed to be constructed with lightweight materials to remain structurally sound.
The stadium itself has been sturdy through its first week of the United States Open, but the women’s singles draw has crumbled within it, with three of the top four seeds losing there.
Fourth-seeded Angelique Kerber, the recent Wimbledon champion, became the latest top player to exit the Open at Armstrong Stadium, falling, 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, to 29th-seeded Dominika Cibulkova on Saturday.
Kerber’s departure followed those by top-seeded Simona Halep on Monday and second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki on Thursday. In all three matches, the top counterpunchers were hit off the court by more powerful players.
“She was the one which was aggressive and, yeah, took the match in the end in her hands,” Kerber said of Cibulkova, who hit 40 winners to her 23.
There have been other notable upsets in Armstrong, including 202nd-ranked Karolina Muchova beating the two-time Grand Slam champion Garbiñe Muguruza, the 12th seed, on Wednesday and No. 103 Marketa Vondrousova beating 13th-seeded Kiki Bertens, the recent Cincinnati champion, on Saturday, 7-6 (4), 2-6, 7-6 (1).
The top men had been largely immune to the upset bug on Armstrong until Saturday, when fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev lost to Philipp Kohlschreiber, 6-7 (1), 6-4, 6-1, 6-3. Zverev, who has struggled to back up tour success with a string of wins at Grand Slam events, is the highest seeded man to lose in singles.
Cibulkova had lost to Kerber twice in straight sets this year, on a hard court in Sydney in January and on grass in Eastbourne, England. But at the U.S. Open, which many players have said is playing slow this year, Kerber’s counterpunching was unable to make much of a dent in Cibulkova’s more forceful attacking style.
Cibulkova said a new tactical approach to playing Kerber had been a key to her success on Saturday, though she was understandably reticent to give specifics.
“My hard work is paying off,” said Cibulkova, who made a run to the Wimbledon quarterfinals in July. “I’m happy to show it on my best tennis on the biggest stage in the world.”
Cibulkova next faces a player ranked below Kerber, but perhaps a taller task: 14th-seeded Madison Keys, against whom Cibulkova is 0-4. At 5-foot-3, Cibulkova has struggled with trying to return Keys’s high-bouncing kick serve, which can bound up above Cibulkova’s shoulders.
Cibulkova was optimistic that her improved fortunes against another kick server, Samantha Stosur, could give her insights.
“I’m sure I can find a way how to get there and how to play good tennis to beat her, to fight all the way,” she said.
Keys, the U.S. Open runner-up last year, reached the fourth round at the tournament for the fourth consecutive year by coming back to beat Aleksandra Krunic, 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, on Saturday.
Krunic had been the last player to knock Keys out of the U.S. Open’s first week, beating her in the second round in 2014. Keys’s mentality and physicality have matured in the past four years, allowing her to stay calm, composed and resourceful. Before, panic might have set in if she found herself down a set on Arthur Ashe Stadium, as she was on Saturday.
“I think the biggest thing was just being on that stage more and more and being more comfortable in a situation where I lost the first set,” Keys said. “I know I can come back.”
Krunic, who at 5-foot-2 is even shorter than Cibulkova, was able to find more success against Keys’s serve even as the match otherwise slipped away from her, breaking Keys twice in the third set. But Keys was even better on return, breaking Krunic twice in the second set and four times in the third.
Taking bigger cracks at returns, Keys said, was pivotal to taking the match out of Krunic’s hands.
“I want to be the one that’s dictating points and the one that’s not running as much,” Keys said. “That was the biggest adjustment I had to make.”
Naomi Osaka, seeded 20th, had to make few adjustments in her third-round win, rolling past Aliaksandra Sasnovich, 6-0, 6-0. The match was even more lopsided than the score line might suggest. Sasnovich won only 17 total points, including the first three points of the match, on Osaka’s serve.
“From that moment, I was just thinking that I’m going to try to make as many shots as possible,” Osaka said. “I ended up winning that game. For some reason, my momentum kept going.”
Osaka, an aggressive player who often struggles with consistency, hit just three unforced errors in the match.
Another top-10 woman lost on Saturday, but it was on Court 17, where 30th-seeded Carla Suárez Navarro beat sixth-seeded Caroline Garcia, 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (4).
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