The third set was level at 5-5 and Alexander Blockx was 0-40 down on his own serve, playing with a rib that had needed treatment since the first set. He served his way out of the game, broke Francisco Cerundolo immediately afterwards, and went on to win 6-3, 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 on Monday to become the first Belgian man to reach the US Open quarterfinals.
The match. Blockx took treatment at 3-2 in the first set and said afterwards he had a sharp pain in the rib and had been given medication for it. He held the first set anyway, lost the second, and then spent the rest of the afternoon defending his serve: he faced 17 break points across the match and saved 14 of them. The fourth set went with serve to 5-5 as well before he found the break in the final game, and he was on the ground when Cerundolo’s last ball landed out. Three hours and 16 minutes.
The tennis. Blockx is 6ft 4in and the serve is the reason he is still here, but the closing stages were decided off the ground. The ATP’s match report described him hitting with heavy depth late in both the third and fourth sets and forcing Cerundolo into baseline errors, and he finished with 36 winners. Cerundolo, who had beaten Taylor Fritz in the third round, was chasing a first major quarterfinal of his own.
What he said. Blockx told reporters he had considered stopping. “I was really close to retiring, to be honest,” he said, adding that he had spent much of the match simply hanging on.
The context. This is his first appearance in the US Open main draw and his first match on Arthur Ashe Stadium, and it is his second win over a seed in four days: he beat fifth seed Flavio Cobolli in the third round. Blockx was ranked No. 116 a year ago and reached a career high of No. 32 in July. The ATP lists him as the youngest Belgian to reach a major quarterfinal in the Open era and the fourth Belgian man to do it at any Slam. In April he beat defending champion Casper Ruud on the way to the Madrid semifinals.
What is next. Blockx plays Karen Khachanov on Wednesday for a place in the semifinals. Khachanov beat 14th seed Learner Tien 7-5, 4-6, 6-7(6), 6-1, 6-4 in three hours and 50 minutes on Monday night, and the pairing carries some history for Blockx: Tien beat him in the Next Gen ATP Finals title match last December, three years after Blockx had beaten Tien in the Australian Open junior final. Whether the rib holds is the open question. The full quarterfinal schedule is here.
