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Federer Crushes Goffin to Reach 56th Grand Slam Quarterfinal
NEW YORK — Roger Federer rolled into his 13th U.S. Open quarterfinal on Sunday with a 6-2, 6-2, 6-0 victory over David Goffin.
A year after getting knocked out in the fourth round, the five-time champion showed there would be no repeat of that. He rebounded from an early break to win the final five games of the first set and never let up from there, finishing it off with a backhand down the line in a third set that lasted just 21 minutes.
Federer tied Andre Agassi for the second-most quarterfinal appearances at the U.S. Open, trailing only Jimmy Connors' 17. He had been surprisingly stopped a round short in 2018 by John Millman, preventing what would have been a matchup with eventual champion Novak Djokovic.
The top-ranked Djokovic tried to make it 12 for 12 in U.S. Open fourth-round matches in a night match against Stan Wawrinka, a rematch of Wawrinka's victory in the 2016 final at Flushing Meadows.
Federer lost the opening set in each of his first two matches for the first time in his 19 U.S. Open appearances, but the No. 3 seed has been pretty perfect since while playing the first match of the day in Arthur Ashe Stadium. The 15th-seeded Goffin broke for a 2-1 lead but that was about his last highlight, as Federer amassed a 35-8 advantage in winners and converted nine of his 10 break-point chances.
Earlier Sunday, Ash Barty was knocked out by Wang Qiang, leaving only one of this year's major champions in the women's tournament.
The No. 2 seed and French Open champion was beaten 6-2, 6-4 by Wang, who became the first Chinese woman to reach a U.S. Open quarterfinal since Peng Shuai reached the semis at Flushing Meadows in 2014.
With Wimbledon champion Simona Halep already out in the second round, only top-ranked Naomi Osaka remains among the women who won a Grand Slam tournament this year. The defending U.S. Open champion also won the Australian Open in January.
Osaka, who recently regained the No. 1 ranking that Barty held earlier this summer, was off Sunday after beating 15-year-old American Coco Gauff on Saturday night to reach the round of 16.
Barty won her first Grand Slam in Paris in June and reached the round of 16 in all four majors this season.
''Just because we've had a tough hour and a half on the court, it doesn't reflect on the year that I've had or the couple of weeks I've had here in New York,'' Barty said.
Wang, meanwhile, is into the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in her 21st try and could meet Serena Williams, who was playing Petra Martic later Sunday in a fourth-round match.
