Update — Aug. 21, 2026 (evening): The all-American quarterfinal produced an all-American semifinal. Brandon Nakashima beat Taylor Fritz 7-6(9), 4-6, 6-3, and Frances Tiafoe then beat Lorenzo Musetti 7-6(2), 7-5 in the night match, so the two meet Saturday for a place in the final. On the women’s side Sara Bejlek beat Madison Keys 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(5) to reach her first WTA 1000 semifinal, and Jessica Pegula is through after beating Amanda Anisimova. Elena Rybakina retired against Iga Swiatek with a left ankle injury.
Eight of the 16 singles quarterfinalists at the Cincinnati Open are American, and two of them are guaranteed a place in the semifinals for the simple reason that they play each other.
Taylor Fritz and Brandon Nakashima meet in an all-American men’s quarterfinal on Thursday. Jessica Pegula and Amanda Anisimova do the same in the women’s draw. Between them those two matches put an American into the last four of both events before a ball is struck, with 10 days remaining until the US Open main draw begins on Aug. 30.
The men’s half of the picture was assembled in a single day that removed both of the tournament’s top seeds. Tommy Paul saved a match point in a second-set tiebreak and beat Alexander Zverev 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-4 after a rain delay of roughly 90 minutes, reaching the quarterfinals in Cincinnati for the first time and the 50th tour-level quarterfinal of his career. Hours later Frances Tiafoe beat second-seeded Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-3, 6-4, a result that closed out the bottom half and left the draw without either of the two men seeded above everyone else.
Paul now faces Flavio Cobolli, who came from a set down to beat Rafael Jodar 4-6, 7-6 (3), 6-3. Tiafoe plays Lorenzo Musetti, who beat the Portuguese qualifier Jaime Faria 7-5, 6-2. The fourth men’s quarterfinal pairs Arthur Fils, who beat Alex de Minaur 6-3, 6-4, with Thiago Agustin Tirante, the Argentine who beat Novak Djokovic earlier in the week and added Jakub Mensik 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.
That leaves Fritz and Nakashima on the same side of a bracket for the second time this summer. Fritz beat the Australian qualifier Christopher O’Connell 6-4, 6-3. Nakashima came through a three-set match with Nuno Borges, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 6-3, to reach back-to-back Masters 1000 quarterfinals after his run to the final in Montreal. The two last met in the Washington semifinals, where Fritz won in three sets.
The women’s quarterfinals were completed on a day that also lost its top seed. Aryna Sabalenka led a first-set tiebreak 5-1 and led 4-1 in the second set and lost to the unseeded Czech Sara Bejlek 7-6 (7), 6-4, a defeat that leaves her hold on the No. 1 ranking dependent on results she cannot influence. Bejlek plays Madison Keys, who beat Wang Xinyu 7-6, 6-4.
Coco Gauff beat Marie Bouzkova 6-3, 6-2 in an hour and 33 minutes and plays Marta Kostyuk, who recovered from a set down to eliminate Mirra Andreeva. Pegula came through a three-set match with Sorana Cirstea in wind, and Anisimova beat Linda Noskova 6-1, 6-4 in a match interrupted by rain after the first set. The remaining quarterfinal is the one with the ranking attached to it: Elena Rybakina, who beat Diana Shnaider 6-4, 6-4, plays the defending champion Iga Swiatek, and reaching Sunday’s final would take Rybakina to No. 1 for the first time.
“For the most part, I thought I played a pretty solid match,” Paul said after beating Zverev.
The depth is partly a function of who is not here. Jannik Sinner withdrew with a knee problem and has not played since Wimbledon. Carlos Alcaraz, the defending champion in Cincinnati and the reigning US Open champion, has not competed since April because of a wrist injury. Ben Shelton, the highest-ranked American man in the field, lost in the second round to a qualifier. What is left is a tournament in which four American men and four American women have outlasted most of the field’s leading seeds.
The practical stakes run past Sunday. Cincinnati is the last event that counts toward US Open seeding, and Paul, Tiafoe and Nakashima are all positioned to move. For Fritz and Gauff, the highest-ranked Americans in each draw, the week is less about seeding than about arriving in New York with something to show. Both are still playing on Thursday. So are six of their compatriots.
