Johanna Konta, the US Open’s No13 seed and top-ranked British woman, had played her Round 3 opponent, the No26 seed Belinda Bencic, three times before.
And while she had beaten the talented teenager from Switzerland on the grass of Eastbourne in 2014, she had lost their other two meetings, from a set up, in two two-hour matches.
Now, a repeat of those tough three-setters was the one thing Konta was keen to avoid.
For the Briton was the focus of one of the most distressing scenes yet seen at this year’s Open after she collapsed on court at the end of the second set against Tsvetana Pironkova with heat exhaustion. She began to hyperventilate, became dizzy, laid down on the baseline, and was bathed in ice until the medics arrived.
But she was passed fit to continue, and went on, gingerly, to win the match with some wily tactics and a deep reserve of self-belief.
How would she feel in two days’ time, on another hot afternoon, in the new, beautiful but hot bowl of Grandstand?
After all, Bencic made the quarter-finals on her debut here in 2014—the youngest to do so since compatriot Martina Hingis. However, she had faced many physical obstacles to her progress in 2016.
In her first tournament since Wimbledon, she lost in the first round of Cincinnati and New Haven, having retired at the All England Club in the second round with a wrist injury.
She had also missed most of the clay season, including Roland Garros, with a back injury, and from being inside the top 10, she had now slipped to No26. But at this, the site of her best results, she had scored a good win over the dangerous Andrea Petkovic and then battled hard through well over two hours to beat Samantha Crawford from a set down.
This latest meeting, then, promised much, not least as an indicator of the physical shape of each woman.
That question was answered very quickly, however—indeed in just 52 minutes it was all over, and not by retirement but by a blistering performance from Konta.
The Briton threatened the Bencic serve in the third game, and went on to break it in the fifth. Bencic, despite getting a good percentage of her serves into play, was punished by pounding and accurate returns down the line, off both wings, from Konta. She would not win another game in the set, 6-2.
And if that was ruthless, the second set was even more so. Konta broke immediately, and was holding serve with ease. She would tot up eight aces and win 19 of 20 first serves, and she also used her aggressive serving to come to the net for put-aways—12 points out of 13 attempts.
It was a lost cause for Bencic, who shrugged in despair at her box. She did win the third game of the set, but that would be all. Once Konta had broken her opponent down in the most competitive game of the match, the fifth—and Bencic saved three of the four break points she faced—Konta went on a roll, breaking one last time for 6-1 and the match.
Konta had made, literally, twice as many points as Bencic, hit 29 winners to just six unforced errors, and looked as fresh as a daisy by the time the 52 minutes were done. It was all in stark contrast to the drained woman who had survived more than two and a half hours just two days before.
Her reaction? “Overwhelmingly happy!”
She went on to affirm that her recovery is still work in progress:
“I think I’m still constantly working on recovering. I think it’s a management process more than anything. But I feel good. I feel well enough to play. I’m really happy with how I was able to just really focus on the match at hand and the work at hand and then put all else out of my mind.”
Next up for Konta is the No48 ranked Anastasija Sevastova. They have met once before, in qualifying at the Australian Open in 2013. Konta won in a very tight scoreline, but that seems like another age as well as another country. Konta was ranked 153, more fragile mentally, and far from the resilient, strong striker of the ball we see today.
Make no mistake though: The Latvian proved, in beating Garbine Muguruza in the second round, that she is riding her own wave of confidence.
A win would take Konta to a first quarter-final in New York, and from there to a meeting with one of the most in-form women of the moment, No8 seed Madison Keys. The American was pressed hard by the Japanese talent Naomi Osaka, having to come back from 1-5 down in the third set and surviving a concluding tie-break.
However Keys was also one half of the joint latest women’s match ever played here in her opener on Monday, another three-set marathon. Therefore it could be the surprise package of Caroline Wozniacki, twice a runner-up in New York and a former No1, who could beat Keys in the fourth round.
Surprise, because the popular Dane’s form and ranking have plummeted in recent months, with wins hard to come by. She entered the draw here not just unseeded but ranked 74, and her cause was not helped by an ankle injury through much of the summer. Then in Washington and Montreal, she had an elbow injury.
But playing in her 10th main draw at the US Open, she has looked very much like her old self, beating No9 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, Taylor Townsend, and now Monica Niculescu, 6-3, 6-1.
In the other quarter of this half, No7 seed and last year’s runner up, Roberta Vinci, beat Carina Witthoeft in three sets, and will play another unseeded woman, Lesia Tsurenko, who put out No12 seed Dominika Cibulkova, also in three sets. Petra Kvitova completed the day’s schedule with a comfortable 6-3, 6-4 win over No22 seed Elina Svitolina.