“She’s such a strong player. She doesn’t give you anything for free,” Oudin said. “She plays incredible defense. Makes me hit a thousand balls and really is a really great player. I mean, I don’t know what else I could have done. I could have been more consistent and been more patient, but she really made me think out there and made me have to hit a winner on her to win the point.”

You need to write a story about the fact that the women’s game is in such disarray that Melanie Oudin, a 17-year-old kid, is able to beat just about everyone she faces — without any dominant strokes — by simply not collapsing and allowing every other ranked female to self-destruct as they struggle to battle their emotional demons.

“I plan on playing just now,” Murray said. “See what I, you know, do from here. You know, go and obviously take a few days off. You know, been over in the States now, you know, a good sort of six and a half, seven weeks. You know, so I will go home and rest and, you know, make sure I do all the right things and, you know, hopefully be okay.”

Looking to join the two in the semifinals in Wednesday play will be an all-unseeded meeting with Belgian Yanina Wickmayer vs. the Ukraine’s Kateryna Bondarenko, and in the much-anticipated first night match at 7 p.m. EST, new American sweetheart Melanie Oudin vs. No. 9-seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki.

Andy Murray has the tools to win a Grand Slam event, but he does face a tough question: “Should I stick with a generally effective strategy of counterpunching or change strategies by developing and using bigger shots?” Internal doubts arising from this quandary might be worse than just selecting one option and committing to it.

This is the first time in 128 years of the US Open or U.S. National Championships as it used to be called that no American reached the quarterfinals.

“I haven’t been introduced to his game. So I didn’t know what to expect,” Djokovic said. “I knew he’s a big guy with a big serve, lefty. So, you know, I haven’t watched it. So it’s always dangerous in these positions. But that’s why I needed to really stay focused and try to read his game and try to be able to recognize the positions and his disadvantages.”

“During the match, I had confidence, and, I mean, I was right there with her the entire time,” said the 17-year-old Oudin, who repeatedly received treatment for a wrapped leg injury. “She wasn’t blowing me off the court. She wasn’t hitting winners left and right on me.”

“Yeah, it’s tough, of course, to come back, because I stop [playing for] three months,” Gasquet said. “I played my last tournament in April in Roma, so I stopped three months. It’s a lot. I couldn’t practice. If you have this kind of [worry], you will see you won’t [want] to [practice].”

“My thought’s that if you play consistent, you can be very highly ranked,” Venus said. “I guess it’s all about playing consistent these days. She’s played very consistently, and kudos to her and credit to her for being able to hold onto that No. 1 ranking and playing so well.”