Coco Gauff raised a fist, then wagged her right index finger, responding to, and riling up even more, a loud-louder-loudest Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd that was standing and screaming.
Gauff's US Open opponent, Zhang Shuai, covered both ears with her hands to shield them from what she described later as a Boom! of sound.
Gauff and her fans were reacting excitedly to quite a point, one in which the 18-year-old Floridian raced to her right for a defensive forehand, then changed directions to sprint and slide into a backhand that drew a netted volley from Zhang. Just four points later, Gauff was a quarterfinalist at Flushing Meadows for the first time.
Gauff, the French Open runner-up in June, came back in each set to beat China's Zhang 7-5, 7-5 on Sunday to become the youngest American to make it this far at the US Open since Melanie Oudin was 17 in 2009.
Nick Kyrgios is playing much better than he ever has at Flushing Meadows, too, building off the momentum of his run to the Wimbledon final in July, and he eliminated defending champion and No. 1-ranked Daniil Medvedev 7-6 (11), 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 on Sunday night.
The 23rd-seeded Kyrgios was up to some of his usual behaviour - warned for cursing, yelling at his guest box, playing to the crowd - but he also outplayed Medvedev in a high-quality match.
He'll play No. 27 seed Karen Khachanov on Tuesday, when the other's men's quarterfinal on the top half of the bracket is 2022 French Open runner-up Casper Ruud against 2021 Wimbledon runner-up Matteo Berrettini.
Medvedev will relinquish the top spot in the rankings after the US Open, with Ruud joining Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz as players with a chance to replace him.
Garcia is coming off a hard-court title at Cincinnati and stretched her winning streak to 12 matches by defeating No. 29 Alison Riske-Amritraj of the US 6-4, 6-1.
The other quarterfinal on that half of the women's field will be between Ajla Tomljanovic, the player who beat Serena Williams in the third round, and No. 5 Ons Jabeur, who was the runner-up at Wimbledon. Tomljanovic got past Liudmila Samsonova 7-6 (8), 6-1 at Louis Armstrong Stadium in a matchup between unseeded players, while Jabeur defeated No. 18 Veronika Kudermetova 7-6 (1), 6-4.
Tomljanovic is a 29-year-old Australian who is now into her third Grand Slam quarterfinal after making it that far at Wimbledon the past two years. On Wednesday, Tomljanovic beat Williams in three sets in what is expected to be the last match of the 23-time Grand Slam champion's career.
