One of the biggest news items from the 2019 United States Open on Tuesday was the fact that 2019 Masters champion Tiger Woods of Cypress, CA was in attendance. Woods was a guest of Rolex, and was seen cheering loudly for French Open champion Rafael Nadal of Spain, who beat Marin Cilic 6-3, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 in the fourth round.
It is now interesting that many global tennis fans are confused. They are wondering why Woods was supporting Nadal instead of the great Roger Federer of Switzerland, who is playing his quarterfinal match against Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York on Wednesday.
The best possible answer I could give is that Woods has supported both Federer and Nadal over the years. Woods has a rich history of supporting Federer, who is considered by many as the best player of all-time, but in recent years has attended more and more of Nadal’s matches. What has been a little disconcerting to Fed fans though is that Woods was supporting Nadal, while Federer was still left in the men’s singles draw.
The presence of Woods, his girlfriend Erica Herman and Tiger’s son Charlie seemed to spark Nadal. One of Nadal’s shots in the match was remarkable and received great applause from the crowd. In a remarkable return, one of Nadal’s shots went around the net post for a winner.
Nadal, the second ranked player from Spain, was one of two players on Labor Day to win in four sets. The other was 20th ranked Diego Schwartzman of Argentina, who beat sixth ranked German Alexander Zverev 3-6, 6-2, 6-4, 6-3. The other two men’s players to reach the quarterfinals each won in straight sets as 24th ranked Matteo Berrettini of Italy beat Andrey Rublev of Russia 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 and 13th ranked Gael Monfils of France beat Pablo Andujar of Spain 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 in a very lopsided affair.
Four female seeds advanced to the quarterfinals on Monday, however one of the seeds who failed to advance was world number one Naomi Osaka of Japan, who lost to 13th ranked Belinda Bencic of Switzerland, 7-5, 6-4. Other winners on Monday were Bianca Andreescu, the 15th ranked Canadian who beat Taylor Townsend of the United States 6-1, 4-6, 6-2; 25th ranked Elise Mertens of Belgium, who beat Kristie Ahn of the United States 6-1, 6-1 and 23rd ranked Donna Vekic of Croatia, who beat 26th ranked Julia Goerges of Germany 6-7, 7-5, 6-3.
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