Botic van de Zandschulp Survives Match Point in US Open Epic
Botic van de Zandschulp walked to his chair in New York looking spent, two sets down and staring at the exit. Five hours and 13 minutes later, he walked off a US Open court as a quarterfinalist again, having survived one of the longest matches in the tournament’s history and a match point that should have ended his run.
The Dutchman, 30 years old and unseeded, dragged himself back from the brink to defeat Frenchman Arthur Gea in a marathon that became the fourth-longest match ever played at the US Open. The final scoreline read like a saga: 3:6, 6:7 (0), 7:6 (7), 7:6 (3), 6:4.
For a long stretch, it looked like Gea’s night.
Gea’s dream run, one point from history
Gea, who only made the main draw as a lucky loser after 2022 US Open finalist Casper Ruud withdrew with a back injury, played with the freedom of a man who had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
He took the first set 6:3, then tightened his grip in the second, racing through the tiebreak 7–0. Van de Zandschulp looked flat, out of rhythm, and out of answers. The Frenchman was dictating rallies, flirting with a piece of history: no lucky loser had ever reached a Grand Slam men’s singles quarterfinal.
The pressure finally told late in the third-set tiebreak. Gea earned a match point. One swing from the last eight.
Van de Zandschulp refused to fold. He saved it, clung on, and stole the tiebreak 9–7. The match flipped. So did the mood in the stadium.
From that moment, every game felt like survival.
Dutch resilience in a five-hour war
Van de Zandschulp, who first reached the US Open quarterfinals in 2021, began to lean on his experience. His serve steadied. His groundstrokes grew heavier. The errors that had flowed from his racket early on began to dry up, while Gea’s legs and belief started to wobble under the weight of missed chances and mounting tension.
The fourth set followed the same knife-edge pattern. Gea pushed again, stayed with him, but when the tiebreak arrived, the Dutchman took control. He dominated it 7–3, dragging the contest into a deciding set that felt inevitable once he had wriggled out of danger in the third.
By then, the clock had turned the match into an endurance test as much as a tennis contest. Five hours loomed. Every service game was a small battle. Van de Zandschulp, buoyed by his escape, struck first in the fifth, grabbing a crucial break and protecting it with a calm that had been missing early on.
He closed out the set 6:4, completing a comeback that will sit alongside his 2021 run as a defining chapter of his career.
Earlier in the tournament, he had already shown form by taking out Australian Alex de Minaur in the second round. Now he stands back in the last eight in New York, this time with a five-hour epic on his résumé.
Blockx makes Belgian history, Khachanov digs deep
On the same day, the men’s draw carved out two more quarterfinalists with very different kinds of statements.
Belgian 28th seed Alexander Blockx delivered a landmark win, beating 24th seed Francisco Cerundolo 6:3, 4:6, 7:5, 7:5. The victory made Blockx the first Belgian ever to reach the US Open quarterfinals in men’s singles, a breakthrough that rewrites his country’s record in New York and signals a new presence in the latter stages of hard-court majors.
If Blockx’s win was about seizing a historic opportunity, Karen Khachanov’s path was about survival. The Russian outlasted 14th-seeded American Learner Tien in another five-set grind: 7:5, 4:6, 6:7 (6), 6:1, 6:4. Khachanov, a seasoned campaigner at this level, reset after dropping the third-set tiebreak and stormed through the fourth, then held his nerve in the fifth to shut down the home hope.
That result sets up a quarterfinal between Blockx and Khachanov, a clash of a rising name and a hardened contender.
Van de Zandschulp, meanwhile, moves on from a night when he stared down elimination, rewrote the script, and turned a lucky loser’s near-fairy tale into his own revival. The question now is simple: after surviving five hours and a match point, how much further can he push this run in New York?
