ARTHUR Ashe Stadium’s crowd during the night match was left a little speechless following Botic Van de Zandschulp causing a monumental upset over third seed Carlos Alcaraz. The Spaniard and former number one was coming off a Wimbledon title and Olympic silver medal, but has won just one of his past three matches, with the most recent loss coming in straight sets, 6-1 7-5 6-4.

Alcaraz looked tired and out of sorts against the hungry van de Zandschulp, as the Dutchman raced to a first set lead dropping just one game along the way and saving both break points he faced. Only losing three points off his first serve and only three double faults off his second, the world number 74 hit six winners for as many unforced errors en route to victory.

By comparison, Alcaraz did not hit a winner in the first set, instead only winning 13 points and hitting eight unforced errors. He stepped up a little more in the second set with 13 winners to nine unforced errors, but looked out of sorts still, winning just 53 per cent of his first serve points off a 55 per cent clip.

While van de Zandschulp was challenged more on serve, he was was able to come from 5-4 down on serve to win the last three games of the set and go to a commanding 2-0 lead. Not willing to throw in the towel, Alcaraz kept battling on, but ultimately it was just not his day, and he was as bad as van de Zandsculp was good, resulting in the straight sets upset win.

In the end, the Dutchman hit one more winner (22-21) and six less unforced errors (21-27), but it was hist first serve percentage of 78 per cent – compared to Alcaraz’s 60 per cent – that was the key difference between the players. Essentially van de Zandschulp wore down the Spaniard who has had a huge few months and took out the deserved win.

The Dutchman – who claimed another big win in the first round against former Top 10 player Denis Shapovalov – takes on 25th seeded Brit Jack Draper in the Round of 32. Draper also had an easy day out, defeating Facundo Diaz Acosta in straight sets.

AROUND THE COURTS

It was a good day for the Brits against Argentina on Court 5, with the prior match to Draper’s triumph being Daniel Evans defeating Mariano Navone 6-4 6-3 6-3 in two hours and 37 minutes. Elsewhere Jannik Sinner, Daniil Medvedev and Matteo Arnaldi all moved through in straight sets, while Tommy Paul won against Aussie Max Purcell when the latter retired at 7-5 6-0 1-0 down.

There were a couple of other massive upsets however, with Australian Jordan Thompson taking down seventh seeded Pole Hubert Hurkacz in straight sets. He was joined in the next round by Alex de Minaur and Christopher O’Connell who survived their Round of 64 matches. Qualifier Tristan Schoolkate almost caused an incredible upset over Czech Jakub Mensik when two sets to love up and going to two tiebreakers in the fourth and fifth sets, but heartbreakingly fell, 6-7 2-6 6-2 7-6 7-6.

Fellow Czech Tomas Machac upstaged local hope Sebastian Korda 6-4 6-2 6-4, while Canadian Gabriel Diallo, Portugese hope Nuno Borges, Belgian David Goffin and Italian Flavio Cobolli were the other winners on day four.