New York: Eighth seed Petra Martic of Croatia on Friday (local time) booked her spot in the last sixteen of the ongoing US Open despite a sloppy display against grand slam newcomer Varvara Gracheva.
Martic thrashed Gracheva in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 to reach the fourth round at the Flushing Meadows event.
Martic, who struggled through an error-riddled match against Kateryna Bondarenko in the second round, broke her Russian opponent's serve three times in each set on the way to a comfortable win.
The match between the Croatian and Russian got off to a ragged start as there were three straight breaks in the beginning. Both the tennis players were making silly errors, however, Martic, later on, managed to hold her serve and grab a 3-1 lead.
Martic further settled into the game after Gracheva continued to pile up the errors.
Martic of Croatia will take on either Yulia Putintseva or Aliaksandra Sasnovich next as she looks to reach the quarter-finals of the US Open for the first time.
Meanwhile, in men's draw world number one Novak Djokovic on Friday continued his dominant run in the ongoing US Open with a 6-3 6-3 6-1 win over Jan-Lennard Struff.
With this, Djokovic advanced to the fourth round of the US Open.
The German, who had won just one set in their five meets in an ATP event, was once again unable to disrupt Djokovic's flow in the third round of the grand slam event.
The only interesting event in the game came early on when Struff had break point opportunities. However, Struff was not able to convert it against Djokovic's serve in the first game.
After recording his 600th career win on hard courts, Djokovic, a three-time champion at Flushing Meadows, said, "It was a very, very good performance from my side."
"I managed to read his serve well. Made one necessary break in the first set, I faced one or two breakpoints in the opening game," the Serbian star added.
"Obviously the trajectory of the match can go differently if you lose your serve against a big guy like Struff, who serves really well and has a very aggressive, powerful game from the back of the court," said Djokovic, who is looking for an 18th Grand Slam title.
