Key quotes from the 13th day of the US Open at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre in Flushing Meadows on Friday:
"It's not easy playing here at Arthur Ashe (stadium). You're playing in front of all your favourite athletes and movie stars. So to be able to keep your head down and focus for over three hours is not an easy task. I keep on looking up at the screen like, oh, shoot. Jalen Brunson's here."
– Ben Shelton after beating Frances Tiafoe in front of a star studded New York crowd.
"Straight-set win, but anything but straightforward in a way. He played incredibly well. Fought incredibly well. Second and third set I think it's more than obvious that they could have gone both ways. I just played a few points better here and there."
– Top seed Alexander Zverev after beating Karen Khachanov to reach the US Open final.
"No, I don't have regrets. It's no point to be thinking, 'Oh, I should have done dropshot,' and then you do dropshot, and then you miss dropshot or the guy catches it, and you say, 'No, I should have gone for it.'
"I chose to play the way I chose to play. I trusted my shots. I trusted my decisions. I made some mistakes, but I made some beautiful points as well. He won three more points in my entire match. That's what I saw afterwards. What to say? He won the important ones."
– Russian Karen Khachanov after falling to Alexander Zverev in a tight three-set semifinal at the US Open
"The way (Zverev bounces the ball, look, it annoys not only me, of course, a lot of players, because it takes so much time, really. You don't know how to prepare for the serve. You are, like, ready, and then it's another 12 bounces. At the end of the day, if it's within the rules with the time between points, I cannot say anything against that."
– Karen Khachanov on Alexander Zverev's multiple ball bounces as he prepares to serve.
"I have no idea why. I'm not doing it on purpose. I'm not counting in my head. I'm not getting a certain number or anything like that. I don't know why it increased so much. I think today it decreased again, because I saw (the number) before the semifinal, so I was, like, OK, it has got to go less."
– Alexander Zverev on his sometimes excessive ball bouncing as he prepares to serve.
"I told Kat in the first set – we were down 4-1 or 5-2 or something like that – I was, just, like, I'm so nervous, and I'm just tight, and I'm not moving, and I'm not swinging. She just helped me up. She talked me through it and helped me to relax and helped me to feel like it's OK.
"That's the most important – being able to feel comfortable enough to speak up and say, 'This is what I'm feeling, I'm sorry I'm playing like crap,' and being able to work together as a team to figure that out."
– Taylor Townsend after she and Katerina Siniakova rallied to win the women's doubles title and complete a career Grand Slam together.