But after her unscripted appeal to the Paris public to refrain from crying out during rallies, which followed a nail-biting victory from match point down against Naomi Osaka two days ago, Swiatek could have been forgiven for wondering how she would be received as she stepped on to Court Philippe Chatrier to face Marie Bouzkova.

In a week when crowd behaviour at Roland Garros has come under intense scrutiny, the top seed’s words seemed as bold as her tennis, but any fears she may have harboured over the consequences of speaking out were immediately allayed. Swiatek was greeted by a roar of approval and enjoyed warm support throughout as she marked her 23rd birthday with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Bouzkova, before the stadium treated her to a chorus of Happy Birthday. 

Evidently there are no hard feelings.

“I enjoyed playing today,” Swiatek, who notably enjoyed respectful silence as she went about her business, told Fabrice Santoro in her on-court interview. 

“Marie is a difficult player, because she’s really good at defence, every ball will come back. I really wanted to be patient and solid, and not rush it. I’m happy at the end that I did that.”

It was a predictably challenging afternoon for Bouzkova, who recognised the futility of trying to contain Swiatek’s aggression in the baseline exchanges and tailored her tactics accordingly. There were signs of promise for the 25-year-old when she ventured to the net in the early stages, while her intelligent variations of height and spin contributed to an unexpected dip from Swiatek late in the first set. 

Ultimately, though, Bouzkova lacked the brute force to trouble the defending champion as Osaka had done, Swiatek’s depth and weight of shot pinning her to the baseline, where she spent much of the afternoon scurrying fruitlessly from corner to corner. With Swiatek stepping into her returns, the Czech won less than a third of her second serve points, while the Pole’s superior firepower yielded 34 winners – exactly double Bouzkova’s total. After the heightened emotions of her previous match, following which TV cameras captured Swiatek wiping away tears as she lay on a gym mat, it was no doubt the kind of relatively straightforward afternoon she needed.

“Maybe I was crying because there are cameras in the gym,” quipped Swiatek, who took advantage of the inclement weather in Paris to enjoy a rest day. 

“[I was] just overwhelmed with emotions, I honestly thought that I’m going to be out of the tournament, and even though I felt something on the court, it kind of hit me after. 

“I was happy that I won, but I still felt like I was really on the edge, so I just cried.”

There was much mirth on court afterwards when Swiatek, who will face Anastasia Potapova in the last 16, was unable to recall the name of the park she visited on her day off, sparking an off-mic conversation with Santoro and some helpful suggestions from the crowd. No fan of uncertainty, Swiatek later took to social media to offer clarification: “National Estate of Saint-Cloud,” she confirmed on X, shortly after tournament organisers had presented her with a large cake.

Elsewhere, Ons Jabeur celebrated with uncharacteristic gusto after defeating Leylah Fernandez 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) to reach the second week in Paris for a fourth time in five years. Jabeur, seeded eighth, will now meet Clara Tauson for the first time after the 21-year-old Dane beat former finalist Sofia Kenin 6-2, 7-5. 

“Just reminding everyone that I’m still here,” said Jabeur, who saved a set point in the second set. “It’s also nice to prove for myself, because I’ve been in a bad place for months, trying to gain back my confidence.”

Coco Gauff, the third seed, remains on course for a projected semi-final meeting with Swiatek, easing past Dayana Yastremska 6-2, 6-4. The US Open champion will now face Italy’s Elisabetta Cocciaretto, a 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 winner over Liudmila Samsonova, the 17th seed.

“I love the courts here,” said the 51st-ranked Cocciaretto. “It reminds me a lot of the courts where I was born. I have very good memories of when I was a kid, watching on TV all the Italian players that were playing Roland Garros. Italians, we were born on clay.”

The most emotional scenes of the day came on Court Simmone-Mathieu, where Olga Danilovic, a 23-year-old qualifier from Serbia, showed extraordinary resilience to defeat Donna Vekic 0-6, 7-5, 7-6 (10-8). Danilovic, who has already claimed notable wins over Martina Trevisan and Danielle Collins, recovered from 6-2 down in the decisive tiebreak after Vekic had twice served for the match.

“I don’t know how I won this match, I was down so many times,” said Danilovic, overwhelmed by emotion, after reaching the second week of a major for the first time. 

“Yesterday I finished so late, 6.30[pm], and I got the time for today ,and it was 11am. I knew that I had to put myself together to sleep as much as I can, just to try to play. 

“But I practise for these kinds of moments. When they come, I really want to take the best out of them, just enjoy being here and enjoy suffering as well. In tennis, at the end, sometimes you really need to suffer, like I did today.”

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Belinda Bencic, who was defeated 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 by Fernandez in the third round at Roland Garros, could be forgiven for feeling a little bit New York too. For the Swiss, however, memories of what happened at Flushing Meadows are of a rather different hue. Flying high after winning an Olympic gold medal, Bencic stood within a round of matching the best grand slam run of her career when she was undone in the quarter-finals by an unseeded British qualifier named Emma Raducanu. We all know how that one worked out. 

This time, things were meant to be different for the Swiss. As the highest seed remaining in the lower half of a draw decimated by high-profile casualties, the nettle was hers to grasp. And when she stood within a point of moving 3-0 ahead in the decider, having bounced back superbly from the disappointment of failing to convert two set points in the opener, it seemed she had indeed, belatedly but decisively, taken control of a fluctuating, topsy-turvy contest.

Fernandez, though, is more than just a gifted shot-maker, and while she has struggled this year to reach the dazzling heights she touched in New York, the spirit and tenacity that served her so well eight months ago remain undiminished. The absurd crosscourt backhand that Bencic struck to lay the groundwork for an early break in the final set, an acutely angled winner delivered from so far off the court that she might as well have been sitting in the front row, would alone have broken the spirit of some players. But Fernandez continued to fight tooth and claw, never once considering that it might not be her day. 

“It was an incredible fight,” said Fernandez of her two hour and 48 minute victory over the 14th seed. “I think today I was just trusting my game when it mattered the most, and I’m just glad that I was able to trust it enough for me to keep going and keep executing the game plan.”

Fernandez broke back immediately and survived a break point in each of her next two service games, weathering some brutal returning from Bencic, before claiming a break of her own. When she failing to serve out the match at 5-4, she simply redoubled her efforts, reclaiming the advantage with some wonderful returning before serving out to love. It was a victory born of pure grit.

“I think after the US Open I put a little bit more pressure on myself,” said Fernandez, the 17th seed. “That’s normal, because I want to reproduce what I did in the US Open over and over again. I think after the first few tournaments, I accepted that I will not be playing the same way every single time. I will just have to find solutions and keep working hard. Over the course of the year I have just been sticking to that, just putting my head down and just grinding it out every day.”

Through to the fourth of a slam for only the second time in her fledgling career, Fernandez will next face Amanda Anisimova, the American 27th seed. Anisimova, a semi-finalist in Paris three years ago, went through after Karolina Muchova, the gifted Czech who is returning from six months out with an abdominal injury, was forced to retire after falling heavily on her ankle early in the second set. Muchova continued with her ankle heavily strapped, but was finally forced to concede with Anisimova leading 6-7 (7-9), 6-2, 3-0.  

Also through is Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann, who defeated 15th seed Victoria Azarenka 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (10-5). Teichmann will face Sloane Stephens, a finalist in Paris four years ago, after the American saw off Diane Parry, the Frenchwoman who beat second seed Barbora Krejcikova in the opening round, 6-2, 6-3.

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Serving to become the first qualifier in history to win a grand slam title, Raducanu scraped her knee on the concrete surface of the Arthur Ashe Stadium and had to take a medical timeout. The British teenager had missed two match points in the previous game and now, leading 5-3 in the second set, she would have to step up to the line at break point down, her US Open dream in the balance. 

Leylah Fernandez’s run to the final has been every bit as extraordinary as Raducanu’s, and unlikely comebacks have been its lifeblood. This time, though, the 19-year-old Canadian – who railed at WTA supervisor Clare Wood about the break in play while her opponent was patched up – had finally met her match. Raducanu averted the danger, went on to save a second break point with an awkward but athletic overhead, and served out the game with her second ace of a life-changing night, completing a 6-4, 6-3 victory. 

No one does this. No one comes through qualifying to win the US Open at the age of 18, just three months after leaving school, ranked 150th in the world, and without losing a set. Had a Hollywood scriptwriter pitched such a story, it would have been laughed out of court. Yet it is true, as a statement from the Queen congratulating the Briton on her “outstanding performance” confirmed.

“I’ve always dreamed of winning a grand slam,” said Raducanu. “You just say these things. You say, ‘I want to win a grand slam.’ But to have the belief I did, and actually executing, winning a grand slam, I can’t believe it.

“I first started when I was a little girl, but I think the biggest thing that you have visions of is, for me, it was just winning, the winning moment, and going to celebrate with your team in the box, trying to find your way up to the box, just seeing them after the match. That’s been playing in my head, like, a couple nights.”

That moment too became reality after the match, Raducanu making her way up to into the stands to celebrate with her coach Andrew Richardson and the rest of her team. It will not be the last time. Raducanu is the youngest woman to win a major since Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon in 2004, and the first British female to enter the grand slam winners’ circle since Virginia Wade in 1977. Wade, who looked on with approval from the President’s Box, was also the last British woman to win in New York. That was in 1968. With Raducanu around, it is unlikely to be another 53 years before we see the next British triumph at Flushing Meadows.

The match was compelling and fiercely contested from the outset. Raducanu took an early lead, finally converting her sixth break point after an epic struggle on the Fernandez serve, but there was never any prospect of her running away with the set as she had done in earlier rounds. Sure enough, another tense, lengthy game ensued, the Canadian finally seizing her fourth break point as Raducanu netted a backhand. With three games played, 23 minutes had elapsed. 

Fernandez continued to threaten, and there were some nervous glances from Raducanu up towards her box as she fought through her next two service games. But she remained committed to the courageous ball-striking that has been her hallmark throughout her incredible 10-match run, and in the tenth game her boldness was rewarded. Fernandez tenaciously fended off three set points, but Raducanu earned a fourth with a sizzling off forehand, and another crunching shot off that wing, guided down the line for a clean winner, gave her the set.

The presence of two teenagers in a grand slam final for the first time since 1999 has brought a sense of renewal to this US Open, a quality made all the more poignant by the pre-match ceremony commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks. Neither Fernandez nor Raducanu were born in 2001, and their youthful vibrancy both on and off the court has been a welcome reminder that life endures. Afterwards, Fernandez paid a warm tribute to the crowd, who have been firmly in her corner throughout the fortnight. “I know on this day it’s especially hard for New York and everyone around the United States,” she said. “I just want to say that I hope I can be as strong and resilient as New York has been the last 20 years.”

By that time, she had already demonstrated as much. Having staved off three break points in her opening service game of the second set, Fernandez broke in the next game to lead 2-1. She had come from a set down to beat former champion Angelique Kerber as well as Elina Svitolina, the fifth seed, and another comeback looked on the cards. Raducanu, unaccustomed to trailing in such a manner, roused herself anew, breaking back immediately with an acutely angled backhand return. Now she had the bit between her teeth, and a second break soon followed. Fernandez saved two match points at 5-2, only for controversy to erupt in the next game as blood flowed from Raducanu’s wounded knee.   

“I honestly did not know what was happening with Emma,” said the Canadian. “I didn’t know how serious her fall was, so that’s why I went to see the official and ask her about it. You know what, it just happened in the heat of the moment. It was just too bad that it happened in that specific moment with me, with the momentum. But it’s sports, it’s tennis.”

As for Raducanu, her life will change immeasurably from here. Yet if anyone has the maturity and composure to cope with success of this kind at such a precociously young age, it is her. Asked afterwards if making history would place a heavier burden on her, Raducanu’s reply was telling.

“I don’t feel absolutely any pressure,” she said. “I’m still only 18 years old. I’m just having a free swing as anything that comes my way. That’s how I faced every match here in the States. It got me this trophy, so I don’t think I should change anything.”

It is hard to argue.

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Aryna Sabalenka became the latest player to fall under the teenager’s spell, the world No 2 slowly succumbing to her inner demons as she saw a blistering start evaporate in the face of Fernandez’s seemingly boundless resilience and tenacity. The scar tissue from her 7-6 (7-3), 4-6, 6-4 defeat will take some time to heal.

For a quarter of an hour, Sabalenka was unplayable. Slamming down serves at speeds touching 120mph and smoking winners off both sides, the second seed peppered the Fernandez backhand with shots of ferocious weight and velocity. With three games gone, Sabalenka had hit nine winners, made every first serve and committed no unforced errors, allowing Fernandez just two points. With a quarter of an hour gone, she was 4-1 up and looking virtually uncatchable. At this tournament of the teenagers, experience was finally having a moment. 

Then, out of nowhere, Fernandez sparked into life. Aces flew as she held to love with an urgency and authority that seemed to unsettle Sabalenka, who immediately fell 0-40 down on her serve, bookending a disastrous game with her first double faults of the match. Further tension was apparent when the Belarusian visibly tightened up on a forehand to miss a set point at 6-5. In the ensuing tiebreak, a nervy missed overhead was followed by another double fault, and with the crowd firmly behind her Fernandez completed a remarkable turnaround. 

“She started incredibly well in the beginning,” said Fernandez, who will face fellow teenager Emma Raducanu in the final after the British qualifier beat Maria Sakkari, the 17th seed, 6-1, 6-4. “I’m just glad I was able to stay patient, fight for every point. I was glad in the tie-breaker I was able to be offensive but not overly, playing and go for my shots. The second set I had my chances, but I did a few mistakes. She jumped on the opportunity to get the set. In the third, it was just a good battle. We went till the end. I was glad I was able to put that one more ball back in.”

Sabalenka has struggled to reproduce the dominant form she shows most weeks of the year at the majors. She looked to have turned a corner when she finally progressed beyond the fourth round of a slam for the first time to reach the semi-finals at Wimbledon, and as the highest seed left standing at Flushing Meadows, many observers felt she looked ready to take the next step.

That looked unlikely when, midway through the second set, she furiously obliterated a racket at the change of ends as Fernandez calmly munched on a banana, but a more conservative approach earned her a decisive break in the ninth game. Having levelled the match, however, further frustration was to follow for Sabalenka, who recovered a break in the decider only to implode as she served to stay in the contest.

“I’m a little bit disappointed about this match because, as I said, I had a lot of opportunities and I didn’t use it,” said Sabalenka. “Well, this is life. If you’re not using your opportunities, someone else will use it. This is what happened today. I will try to improve it. I will keep working and fighting, and I believe that one day it will come.”

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There are crafty types such as Ashleigh Barty and Ons Jabeur, players who will work out what an opponent wants and make sure they don’t get it, slowing down rallies with their spin and variety or speeding them up with their weight of shot.

And then there’s Leylah Fernandez, who has her own special trick: she steals time. This is not simply a matter of holding her position on the baseline, although that is certainly part of it. Like Angelique Kerber, who she ambushed in the previous round of the US Open to set up Tuesday night’s tense quarter-final showdown with Elina Svitolina, Fernandez has the soft knees, strong legs and rare blend of balance and technique to squat low and absorb an opponent’s pace without conceding ground. 

The young Canadian has an equally Kerber-like capacity to control the racket face in extremis, redirecting the ball to create short, sharp angles and return with interest shots that might force other players into retreat. Again, this has temporal consequences, limiting the reaction time on the opposite side of the net just when her opponents least expect it. 

Where Fernandez really comes into her own as a time bandit, however, is in her ability to make the ball explode off her racket with virtually no backswing, while simultaneously directing her shots with pinpoint accuracy. Like a Larry Holmes jab or one of those sudden, lethal toe-enders in which Ronaldinho used to specialise, Fernandez has the ability to fell an opponent with one short, sharp shock. It is an approach alien to Svitolina, who likes nothing better than to stand off the baseline and scrap. Few players defend better than the Ukrainian, but aggression at key moments has been central to Fernandez’s astonishing run in New York, and it gave the 19-year-old a crucial edge as she consigned the fifth seed to an epic 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5) defeat.

A case in point came in the sixth game of the opening set, where Fernandez pounced on a short second serve before winning a 24-stroke rally to claim the first break of the match. It was just the kind of protracted exchange on which Svitolina might have been expected to thrive. But while the Ukrainian remained camped out a good two metres behind the baseline, Fernandez stood in, progressively squeezing the time and space available to her scrambling opponent. The coup de grâce was a two-pronged affair, a searing sliced backhand drawing Svitolina outside the doubles alley before a sweetly-timed backhand down the middle of the court completed the job. “Svitolina is playing not to lose and Fernandez is playing to win,” was the neat summation offered by Martina Navratilova in her broadcast commentary for Amazon Prime Video.

Having conceded her first set at this year’s tournament, Svitolina was not about to lie down. A semi-finalist in 2019, she came into the contest on a nine-match winning streak, following her title-winning run in Chicago, and buoyed by a summer that has brought an Olympic bronze medal and marriage to Gael Monfils. For Fernandez, meanwhile, the challenge was a novel one. Her shock wins over Naomi Osaka and Kerber had both come after losing the first set, the teenager belatedly rousing herself within a game or two of defeat. The question now was whether she could maintain the attacking intensity that had given her the upper hand.

The answer was not long in coming. Shaking off her early passivity, Svitolina began opening her shoulders, racing to a 5-1 lead before overcoming a brief wobble to see out the set with an ace. An early break in the decider handed Fernandez the momentum again, and at 2-5 Svitolina looked to be down and out. But she mounted a brilliant comeback, forcing a tiebreak in which she again forced her way back into contention after trailing. At 5-5, however, Fernandez pulled off a dramatic forehand winner, a running pass flying off the net tape to bring up the first match point of the night. Svitolina drove a backhand long, and the US Open had its youngest semi-finalist since Maria Sharapova in 2005.

“Today’s match was definitely one of the hardest, not only tennis-wise but also mentally and emotionally,” said Fernandez, who will face Aryna Sabalenka in the last four after the second-seeded Belarusian beat a below-par Barbora Krejcikova 6-1, 6-4. “Svitolina is a great player, great fighter. I was glad I was able to fight in the first set. In the second set she upped her level and I unfortunately made a few mistakes on key moments. I’m glad I was able to recuperate for the third set. The tiebreaker, too. A little bit lucky at 5-All, but I’ll take all the luck I can get. I was glad I was able to push through the finish line.”

The march of the teenagers continues.

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Her latest moment brought another victory that defied the odds as Fernandez, the world No 73, came from behind to reach the US Open quarter-finals at Kerber’s expense, consigning the 33-year-old to a 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 win that demonstrated, lest there should be doubt, that her shock victory over defending champion Naomi Osaka was no flash in the pan. 

At a set and 4-2 up, Kerber looked to be cruising into the last eight. Having put a sequence of three successive first-round losses at the majors behind her with a run to the Wimbledon semi-finals, and reached the same stage on the hard courts of Cincinnati, Kerber has been in resurgent form of late, and looked poised for another deep run in New York, where she was the champion five years ago. 

But Fernandez, a tenacious lefty with an eye for the angles and an appetite for the fray, is a player cast in the same mould as Kerber. With defeat looming on the eve of her 19th birthday, she roused herself. She bounced, she roared, she smiled; she ignited the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd with her energy and defiance, and discomfited Kerber with the electrifying audacity of her shot-making. The German fended off a set point at 6-5, but ultimately had no answer to the wave of youthful energy coming at her from the opposite side of the net. 

How does Fernandez do it? “Having fun on the court, I think that’s the key to anybody’s success, especially mine,” said the Canadian, who will face Elina Svitolina for a place in the semi-finals after the Ukrainian fifth seed beat Simona Halep in straight sets. 

“If I’m not happy, or I’m putting too much pressure on myself, I start making mistakes and I’m not enjoying myself. But these past few weeks I have been enjoying myself a lot on the tennis court, and that’s been a mindset of mine from the very beginning, [one] that not only my dad but also my mom has been telling me to do so that I can enjoy this life. I chose this profession and I want to enjoy it as much as possible and have fun – [it] is one of the biggest keys that I have.”

Her enjoyment was not shared by Kerber, who saw a 5-1 lead in the second-set tiebreak evaporate and looked physically and emotionally spent by the end. “It was a tough one,” said the 16th seed. “I gave everything I had today. She played an unbelievable match, especially in the third set. Also in the second. I think she played one of the best matches in her career, and she had nothing to lose. She went out there, she played her tennis. She really is going for her winners, and at the end it was just two, three points which decide the match. She took it in her hands.”

Kerber was magnanimous in defeat, hailing the “start of a great career” and acknowledging that Fernandez is “a little bit similar” to her style, albeit playing with a liberty that is the preserve of youth. “I remember the feeling really well,” she said. “I mean, she has no pressure. She’s going out there, she has a loose hand, she’s hitting the ball, and she was going forward. She did a good job. I mean, she was not shaking.”

Kerber added with a rueful smile: “I think [such freedom], it’s just [for] the young people. I wish, but I think it’s playing without completely pressure, it’s – in this position – impossible. But I wish.”

Fernandez, meanwhile, will just keep swinging. “I think from a very young age, I’m just a happy-go-lucky girl. I never really take things too seriously or some things too hard. I just have fun on anything and everything that I do.”

Fun was in short supply in the latter stages of Barbora Krejcikova’s 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) win over Garbiñe Muguruza. In a tense conclusion to the match, Muguruza recovered from 4-0 down in the second set, missed three set points and was leading 6-5 when Krejcikova, who said she was feeling unwell, left the court for a nine-minute medical timeout.

The French Open champion returned to hold to love, but infuriated Muguruza with her slow play in the tiebreak, trudging over to the side of the court to towel off as the Spaniard waited to serve. Muguruza made her feelings plain as the pair shook hands, ignoring her opponent’s apology as she branded the Czech “so unprofessional”.

“I don’t really want to talk about this,” Muguruza told the press afterwards. “I’ll let you guys judge what you think … I think, between players, you know a little bit how to behave in certain moments and, yeah, I wasn’t very happy at the end of the match.”

Krejcikova, who will play second seed Aryna Sabalenka for a place in the semi-finals after the Belarusian beat her doubles partner Elise Mertens 6-4, 6-1, did not perform press duties afterwards, but released a statement through the USTA. 

“Garbiñe started to raise her level and I was expecting that,” said Krejcikova. “At the end, I was really struggling and I feel really bad right now. I don’t really know what happened, but I couldn’t breathe. I started to feel dizzy, and the whole world was shaking. It never happened to me before.”

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