NEW YORK — This was a fourth-round match with unusually large consequences, a highly charged litmus test, a gut-check in real time.

After missing the entire 2023 season on maternity leave, four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka has expressed frustration with her lack of progress. When would her game regain that ethereal major-winning quality?

Coco Gauff, even in the wake of a title at Roland Garros, turned to biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan just before the US Open, willing to sacrifice short-term results by playing the long game. Could she rely on her great strengths of speed and competitive fire while making significant adjustments to her serve and forehand?

The answers arrived in only 64 minutes on Monday in Arthur Ashe Stadium as Osaka dropped a decisive 6-3, 6-1 decision on Gauff to advance to the quarterfinals. It’s Osaka’s first major quarterfinal since winning the 2021 Australian Open.

It was reminiscent of the memorable match between the two here six years ago. Osaka, at the height of her powers, dispatched a 15-year-old Gauff 6-3, 6-0 in a third-round match that ended with tears. The difference is that Gauff was seeded No. 3 here and Osaka was No. 23.

“I mean I’m a little sensitive — I don’t want to cry,” Osaka said afterward. “Honestly I had so much fun out here.

“This is my favorite court in the world, and it means so much to be back here.”

Much has been made of Osaka’s move to coach Tomasz Wiktorowski. And while Iga Swiatek’s former coach has been a boon to her confidence, the difference between the 2024 Osaka and this year’s edition might just be fitness — and the confidence that brings.

Even earlier this year, she appeared sluggish at times, impatient to end points quickly. Against Gauff, Osaka moved exceptionally well, weathered long rallies and stayed in a visibly positive frame of mind. Her intensity was palpable.

So was her patience. Osaka won 16 of the 24 rallies that went five shots or more. She also converted each of the four break points she earned. Osaka next plays Karolina Muchova, a three-set winner against Marta Kostyuk. 

Gauff, meanwhile, consistently struggled with her forehand and service game. There were five double faults, but the forehand was the real issue. Gauff had 20 unforced errors on that side. On this occasion, even her usually reliable backhand sometimes broke down.

Even early on, Gauff’s forehand was fluky (five errors) and Osaka broke and then held at love for a 2-0 lead.

But while Gauff — with a tweaked toss — had eased into her service games in the opening rounds, she came out firing against Osaka. She stroked two aces in her second service game and the other two first serves were unreturned. They were all 110 mph-plus.

That break was the only margin until Gauff, trailing 5-3, was broken again. Two double faults, in addition to two groundstroke errors, gave Osaka the set in 31 minutes.

With the match on serve at 3-2 in the second set, Gauff served into trouble. A double fault started it and an errant backhand closed it as Osaka converted her third break point in her third try.

Osaka scored one last break to secure the match.

Osaka is realistically trying to win her third US Open title in eight years. This is her fifth trip to the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam. It’s worth noting that she won the first four.

The turning point, Osaka said, came last month in Montreal.

That was when Osaka came back from down a set and 5-3, saving two match points, to defeat No. 13 seed Liudmila Samsonova in a match that went more than two-and a-half hours.

“Since then, I’ve been thinking anything’s possible,” Osaka said in her on-court interview. “You just have to have a smile on your face.”

NEW YORK — Naomi Osaka eliminated Coco Gauff 6-3, 6-2 in 64 minutes at the US Open on Monday with a far more confident and consistent brand of tennis to reach her first Grand Slam quarterfinal in more than 4½ years.

Osaka advances to her fifth major quarterfinal, and first since giving birth to daughter Shai in July 2023. Every time Osaka has made the quarterfinal round of a major, she has gone on to win it, her last Slam coming at the 2021 Australian Open.

The No. 23-seeded Osaka was better throughout than No. 3 Gauff, whose repeated mistakes really made the difference in Arthur Ashe Stadium. Osaka never faced a break point and lost just six points on her serve.

“I was super locked in, to be honest. I was really locked in,” said Osaka, a 27-year-old who was born in Japan and moved to the U.S. with her family at age 3. “I felt like everyone wanted to watch a really great match, and I hope that’s what you got.”

Osaka displayed the demeanor, big serve and booming strokes that have carried her to four major championships, all on hard courts. That includes titles at the US Open in 2018 and 2020, and at the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021.

It was at the French Open later in 2021 that Osaka helped spark a global conversation about mental health by revealing she felt anxiety and depression. She then took a series of breaks from the tour.

That most recent trophy at Melbourne Park was the last time Osaka had even made it as far as the fourth round at any Slam event until this match against Gauff, a 21-year-old from Florida who owns two major trophies. The first came at Flushing Meadows in 2023 and the second at the French Open this June.

For Osaka, this marks a real return to her best play since she returned to the tour after a 17-month maternity leave.

“I’m a little sensitive and I don’t want to cry, but honestly, I just had so much fun out here,” said Osaka, who first played Gauff back at the 2019 US Open, also in Ashe, and won that one, too.

“I was in the stands like two months after I gave birth to my daughter, watching Coco. I just really wanted an opportunity to come out here and play,” Osaka told the crowd. “This is my favorite court in the world, and it means so much for me to be back here.”

Gauff came out jittery at the start. Her serve was fine; other strokes were the problem. She finished with 33 unforced errors — way more than Osaka’s 12.

Trying to rework her serve during this tournament with the help of biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan, Gauff got broken right off the bat and was down 2-0 after just five minutes, dropping eight of the initial nine points while making five unforced errors.

Whether because it’s what the prematch strategy dictated or because of how the beginning unfolded, Gauff cranked up the velocity in her second service game. The results were unimpeachable. She hit four first serves in — each arriving no slower than 110 mph, with a high of 115 mph — and held at love with a pair of aces and a pair of service winners.

Still, this is where the key difference was: Osaka used her big forehand, her best stroke, to go after Gauff’s forehand, her worst stroke, and it worked wonders. By the end of the first set, Gauff had made 16 unforced errors and Osaka only five.

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The summer transfer window is officially closed in most European leagues and things were definitely exciting. Liverpool have finally agreed terms with Newcastle for the transfer of Alexander Isak, though the fate of a Marc Guehi move remains in limbo. Manchester City have agreed a deal with PSG for the transfer of Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, while Ederson is set to join Fenerbahce. On Monday, among the top European leagues, only LaLiga’s window remains open, not shutting until 6 p.m. ET. Other leagues and associations around Europe, like in Türkiye, and in Saudi Arabia will close at later dates, creating opportunities to sell for players and teams that couldn’t find a solution in the summer before the deadline of September 1. Free agents, on the other hand, will still be able to sign with a club if they are not registered with another team.

The top deals of the day

• Alexander Isak from Newcastle to Liverpool for $175 million 
• Gianluigi Donnarumma from PSG to Manchester City for $30 million 
• Edon Zhegrova from Lille to Juventus for $20 million 
• Loic Openda from RB Leipzig to Juventus for $40 million  
• Jadon Sancho from Manchester United to Aston Villa on loan 
• Adrien Rabiot from OM to AC Milan for $10 million 
• Yoane Wissa from Brentford to Newcastle for $73 million
• Senne Lammens from Royal Antwerp to Manchester United for $23 million
• Randal Kolo Muani from PSG to Tottenham on loan
• Manuel Akanji from Manchester City to Inter on loan
• Benjamin Pavard from Inter to OM on loan 
• Nicolas Jackson from Chelsea to Bayern Munich on loan with buy option included in the deal

The Isak saga is finally over

Alexander Isak is a new Liverpool striker in what will be the highest fee in the history of the Premier League after the Reds signed the Swedish striker for around $175 million from Newcastle. It was one of the longest transfer sagas of the summer 2025 as the player pushed to leave Newcastle in the summer transfer window, refusing to play and train with the team coached by Eddie Howe. While Arne Slot’s side kept believing they could land on the deal, the move became a reality only in the last day of the transfer business, as Isak underwent the medical tests in the morning of the Deadline Day. Liverpool signed both Isak and Florian Wirtz in the summer 2025, the two biggest transfer fees paid in the history of the league, as the German striker also joined earlier for $133 million from Bayer Leverkusen.

An unexpected move for Akanji

If most of the deals that went through in the last days of business were kind of expected, there are some that really came out of nowhere. In particular, Inter have decided to sign Manuel Akanji from Manchester City on loan with an option to buy included in the deal, while at the same time Olympique Marseille signed French international Benjamin Pavard from the Nerazzurri. Pavard leaves the Italian Serie A two years after he joined from Bayern Munich, winning one Serie A title under Simone Inzaghi in his first season at the club, while Akanji was also on the radar of AC Milan, but then decided to join their crosstown rivals on the last day of the summer transfer window. 

The story of the day — the deal that didn’t happen

Liverpool were probably the most active team of the window, and they also showed it on deadline day when they signed Isak from Newcastle, but also failed to sign Marc Guehi from Crystal Palace. During Monday afternoon the Reds agreed on a deal to sign him from Crystal Palace for a fee of over $46 million, with a 10% sell-on clause included, but then the deal collapsed as the team coached by Oliver Glasner was not able to sign the replacement for their club captain on time, despite him having a contract running in the summer 2026. After today’s events, there’s a real chance he could leave next year as a free agent, which would be wild, especially considering the club could have made a significant profit by selling him this summer.