He sounds like a revered renaissance painter — and 25-year-old Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp has crafted some tennis art in Flushing Meadows that has landed him in the U.S. Open quarterfinals.
As tough as van de Zandschulp’s full name is to pronounce in one breath is as tough as it is to put away the 11th-seeded Argentinian baseline bug Diego Schwartzman, the Dutch master finally did it in an entertaining five-setter under a closed roof at a jam-packed Armstrong Stadium.
Van de Zandschulp is just the third men’s qualifier in Open history to make the quarterfinals. The final count: 6-3, 6-4, 5-7, 5-7, 6-1.
Dressed in all black, van de Zandschulp had reeled off three victories to get into the main draw and now has added four more victories. That’s seven triumphs in total at Flushing Meadows — which for a main-draw entrant means the Open championship.
Van de Zandschulp took the first two sets, but then saw the Argentine battle back to force a fifth set after van de Zandschulp blew two match points when leading 5-4 in the fourth set.
But van de Zandschulp regrouped, got up 3-0 in the fifth set with his penetrating serve and deep forehands on the way to the four-hour, 20-minute win. The man with the tournament’s best name next faces the No. 2 seed Daniil Medvedev of Russia in the quarterfinals.
Van de Zandschulp is ranked 90th in the world but should go up to at least 61 when this is all done. He’s been the comeback king in this Open, losing the first set in the first three matches.
On the men’s side, this was the first time three qualifiers have reached the Round of 16 at the Open since qualifying records were first kept in 1982.
Schwartzman said Van de Zandschulp was a lot more aggressive than what he had seen on video.
“His tactic today was working perfectly,’’ he said. “I think he deserves the win. He played much better all the match. I was thinking he was trying to play aggressive, trying to do winners. It was a little bit different. He was doing the slices, passing shots. The mix that he did, it was working.’’
