Serena Williams cruises into fourth round, Halep avoids upset on U.S. Open Day 6

Serena Williams cruised past Johanna Larsson into the fourth round on U.S. Open Day 6, while Simona Halep avoided an upset.

Jamie Lisanti | Sep 3, 2016

Serena Williams cruises into fourth round, Halep avoids upset on U.S. Open Day 6 /

NEW YORK – A recap of the action on Day 6 on Saturday at the 2016 U.S. Open, including results, tweets, hot shots, photos and more.

Results Roundup

• No. 1 Serena Williams cruised into the fourth round on Saturday, defeating Sweden’s Johanna Larsson 6-2, 6-1 in just under an hour. The win marked Serena's 307th career match win at a major, surpassing Martina Navratilova's women's singles record and tying her with Roger Federer. Serena now has the most major match wins for a woman in the Open era.

"It is actually a really good feeling," Serena said of the accomplishment. "To be up there with both men and women is something that's super rare, and it actually feels good."

"It's something I didn't even know about until Wimbledon. I was like, 'Oh, I have a new goal," she said with a smile.

Serena will next face YaroslavaShvedova, who beat Shuai Zhang 6-2, 7-5 on Saturday. The World No. 1 has been bothered by shoulder issues, but on Saturday she said that it feels "solid" and will continue to do rehab and therapy on it to keep it in the same condition.

Sock storms into U.S. Open fourth round with newfound moves—and confidence

• Someone get the candles and the cake: On her 28th birthday on Saturday, No. 11-seed Carla Suarez Navarro produced the first result of Day 6, defeating Elena Vesnina 6–4, 6–3 to reach the fourth round. Just hours later, celebrating his 23rd birthday, No. 8-seed Dominic Thiem recovered after dropping the first set to beat Pablo Carreno Busta 1-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-5.

Thiem will next face Juan Martin del Potro after the Argentinean wildcard defeated 7-6(3), 6-2, 6-3 on Louis Armstrong.

"The best player on tour are talking good things about me. That's important to myself, to get confidence with my level, with my play, with my game," del Potro said after the match. "If they see something good in my game, that's important, because I'm showing a good game at the moment. If I see my way to the future will be better, even better than today, and that's important."

Del Potro received a wildcard into this year's tournament after returning to tour following several surgeries on his wrist and following wins over NovakDjokovic and Rafael Nadal en route to a silver medal at the Rio Olympics.

Birthday cupcakes for @CarlaSuarezNava 😋🎂 pic.twitter.com/DlxT7NozXk
— wta (@WTA) September 3, 2016

Suarez Navarro advances to face No. 5-seed Simona Halep, who fought off an aggressive Timea Babos in the day’s opening match on Arthur Ashe. Halep cruised through the opening set vs. the 31st-ranked Babos, an accomplished doubles player, winning in just 24 minutes. But Babos fought back to take the second set and force a decider, where she took an early 3-1 lead before Halep settled in and found her shots. Up a break, Babos had two break points at 4-4 and was up 40-15 at 4-5. On match point, Babos double faulted to give Halep the win, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4.

Simona through fighting and still staying in the moment despite being sometimes a bit negative in between points. Good win and test for her
— victoria azarenka (@vika7) September 3, 2016

• No. 4-seed Agnieszka Radwanska cruised past No. 25-seed Caroline Garcia 6-2, 6-3 to advance to the fourth round. She moves on to face 18-year-old Ana Konjuh, the youngest player remaining in the draw who defeated American Varvara Lepchenko 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. The young Croatian is into her first Round of 16 at a Grand Slam after beating No. 20-seed Kiki Bertens, Kurumi Nara and Lepchenko on Saturday.

Radwanska and Konjuh last played at Wimbledon in 2016, where Konjuh had three match point opportunities on the Pole in the third set before she appeared to roll her ankle after stepping on the ball with the third set level at seven games apiece. Their rematch on Monday will definitely be one to watch as Konjuh and Radwanska will both be looking to make their first career quarterfinal round at the U.S. Open.

Fashion at the 2016 U.S. Open

Garbine Muguruza

Novak Djokovic

Andy Murray

Belinda Bencic

Andrea Petkovic

Svetlana Kuznetsova

Vasek Pospisil

Milos Raonic

Mike and Bob Bryan

Shelby Rogers

Roberto Bautista Agut

Garbine Muguruza

Andy Murray

Paul Henri-Matthieu

Nicolas Mahut

Kei Nishikori

Karolina Pliskova

No. 2-seed Andy Murray defeats Paolo Lorenzi 76(4), 57, 62, 63 in three hours and 17 minutes to advance to the fourth round

Kristina Mladenovic

Kurumi Nara

Julia Goerges, Venus Williams

Venus Williams

Nick Kyrgios

Jelena Jankovic

Serena Williams

Timea Bacsinszky

Serena Williams

Feliciano Lopez

Juan Martin del Potro

Sam Stosur

Monica Niculescu

Dominika Cibulkova

Roberta Vinci

Kevin Anderson

Lesia Tsurenko

Jack Sock

Naomi Osaka

Marcos Baghdatis

Ryan Harrison

Petra Kvitova

Elina Svitolina

Lucas Pouille

Kyle Edmund

John Isner

Nicole Gibbs

Laura Siegemund

Daniel Evans

Alexander Zverev

Stan Wawrinka

Ivo Karlovic

Grigor Dimitrov

Donald Young

Serena Williams

Caroline Wozniacki

Anastasija Sevastova

Kateryna Bondarenko

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

John Isner

Rafael Nadal

Rafael Nadal

Angelique Kerber

Carla Suarez Navarro

Caroline Garcia

Pablo Carreno Busta

Agnieszka Radwanska

Yaroslava Shvedova

Serena Williams

Serena Williams

Ana Konjuh

Serena Williams

Joao Sousa

David Ferrer

Juan Martin del Potro

Paolo Lorenzi

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

• No. 11-seed Karolina Pliskova defeated No. 17-seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-2, 6-4 to advance to the fourth round at major for the first time in her career. Previously, Pliskova was the highest ranked WTA player never to reach the fourth round at a Slam. Pliskova awaits the winner of the match between Venus Williams and Germany's Laura Siegemund, who will open up Saturday's night session on Arthur Ashe.

• It wasn’t pretty, or easy, for Andy Murray but the No. 2-seed got it done against Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi on Saturday, winning 7-6(4), 5-7, 6-2, 6-3 in three hours and 17 minutes to advance to the fourth round. Murray likely spent more time and more energy on court than he wanted to heading into the second week at at Slam, but he advances to face Grigor Dimitrov on Monday. Dimitrov advanced to with a solid 6-4, 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 win over Joao Sousa.

Tweets of the Day

The benefits of a late Saturday match...hearing Nick Kyrgios made it to the Friday "Hamilton" show
— Jon Wertheim (@jon_wertheim) September 3, 2016

Spotted: @UzoAduba's in the house for @serenawilliams' match vs Johanna #Larsson. pic.twitter.com/7qyC2HBnu4
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 3, 2016

Snapshots from Day 6

U.S. Open 2016 Day 6 photos

Dominic Thiem

Elena Vesnina

Carla Suarez Navarro

Dominic Thiem

Carla Suarez Navarro

Timea Babos

Dominic Thiem

Simona Halep

Pablo Carreno Busta

Timea Babos

Simona Halep

Agnieszka Radwanska

Serena Williams

Caroline Garcia, Agnieszka Radwanska

Serena Williams

David Ferrer

Juan Martin del Potro

Andy Murray

Serena Williams

Juan Martin del Potro

Serena Williams

Paolo Lorenzi

Ana Konjuh

Daily Data Viz

Kei Nishikori's backhand is a winning shot

2014 U.S. Open finalist Kei Nishikori is one of the few players who actually wins more with his backhand than his forehand.

Published Sep 3, 2016

JAMIE LISANTI

Jamie Lisanti is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated. A former college soccer player, she covers a variety of topics, including tennis, Olympics, fitness and nutrition, and more.