NEW YORK CITY: There was a moment early in the US Open fourth-round match when Tommy Paul was pulled wide, he lunged forward and, out of nowhere, slammed a forehand winner around the post, landing it behind a stunned Carlos Alcaraz. The crowd gasped, and a flicker of a smile crossed Paul’s face. That was the kind of tennis the 29-year-old needed to produce just to make the match competitive against the defending champion.Instead, it was Alcaraz’s forehand that lit up Arthur Ashe. The Spaniard ripped it from just about anywhere on the court, threading the needle and neutralising the American’s serve as much through positioning as timing. The second seed finished with 33 winners, 17 of them off the forehand side.The world No. 3, returning from a four-month injury-enforced break, advanced to the quarter-finals with a statement 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 win, having dropped just one set across four matches.Sunday was the pair’s ninth meeting, with Alcaraz now leading the head-to-head 7-2. Paul, the world No. 21, had won two of their first three meetings back in 2022-23, but on Sunday he admitted he was nowhere near the level required.“It sucks! It felt like he’s playing at a completely different level than me. It sucks, because you feel like, sh@#t!” Paul said. “But at the same time, you learn a lot every time you play him. Every time I’ve played him, we’ve gone to the practice court with new ideas of what he does well and what I can try and put into my game.”The practice court had also played a part in Alcaraz’s own turnaround in the first week.After his third-round win over China’s Yibing Wu, in which he had managed just nine winners off his forehand while making 19 unforced errors on the same side, the Spaniard went back to work.“For a tennis player, it’s really important how you go to bed in terms of feeling. Especially when you win the match, but you don’t feel like you’ve been hitting the ball well, it is better to go back to the practice court and then just hit for five-ten minutes. Just to hit some balls when you’re not nervous or you’re not thinking about anything else. Leave the site with a good feeling.”Alcaraz left Flushing Meadows feeling a lot better about his forehand on Friday.“I think everybody saw the difference in my forehand today,” he said.The 23-year-old, who exchanged his espresso-brown gear for a black-and-white look, also noted that his Grand Slam off-days now look very different from previous years.Golf had been his favourite escape when he wanted to get away from the pressure of the tennis court. But after the wrist injury, he cannot risk putting his wrist through the demands of the game. These days, his downtime is about recovery and preparing for the next round.Alcaraz will play the eighth-seeded American Ben Shelton next in the last-eight on Tuesday. The 23-year-old moved past Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 and is into his sixth major quarter-final and his second at Flushing Meadows, where he made the semi-finals in 2023.Meanwhile, Frances Tiafoe shocked 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev 7-6 (1), 6-4, 7-6 (6) to earn one of his biggest wins of the season.The 28-year-old world No. 12, roared on by the home crowd, was pumped up for his clash on Louis Armstrong Stadium as he reached the quarter-finals in New York for the fourth time.The two-time US Open semifinalist had lost six of his previous seven meetings with Medvedev, but was the sharper and more focused of the two through the two-hour, 57-minute contest. Tiafoe will face compatriot Alex Michelsen in the last-eight.