It’s been three years since Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka faced off in the 2016 US Open final, which saw Wawrinka prevail for his third Grand Slam crown. The top-seeded Serbian and No. 23 seed from Switzerland take to Arthur Ashe Stadium once again for an epic fourth-round showdown on Sunday.

Defending champion Djokovic leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry 19-5, but Wawrinka’s three most recent victories against him have come in Grand Slams. The Swiss also defeated Djokovic in the 2015 Australian Open quarter-finals and 2015 Roland Garros final, consistently finding a way to raise his level against the World No. 1 in major matches.

“I was full of confidence. I was playing well, moving well, at the top of my game. For sure I could only play the best tennis when it’s the final,” Wawrinka recalled of his US Open triumph. “There’s something with him that when I get into my best game, I know that it’s going to have some big rally. I’m going to play good tennis.”

Who will win the latest @FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting between these players?#USOpen

— ATP Tour (@ATP_Tour) September 1, 2019

However, their careers have taken markedly different turns since their most recent clash in New York. Although they each missed the last four months of the 2017 season due to injury, Djokovic would go on to add another four Grand Slam titles to his tally, while Wawrinka’s comeback has yielded just one tour-level final this February in Rotterdam (l. to Monfils). But despite being the on-paper favourite, Djokovic’s past history with Wawrinka in Grand Slams means he won’t be taking the battle lightly.

”We had some great battles over the years everywhere, but particularly here. I lost to him the last time we played on this court,” Djokovic said. “He’s someone that possesses a game with a lot of power and quality. He’s a great guy. We practice together a lot, so may the best man win.”

Third-seeded Swiss Roger Federer kicks off the day session against No. 15 seed David Goffin of Belgium. The five-time US Open champion leads their FedEx ATP Head2Head rivalry 8-1, including a win this June in the championship match in Halle. Federer is rounding into top form this week, dropping just five games in a dominant third-round victory over Brit Daniel Evans. The World No. 3 in the ATP Rankings looks to shed the demons of his fourth-round exit last year to Aussie John Millman and inch closer to his first title in New York since 2008.

Meanwhile, Goffin is enjoying a career resurgence over the past two months, reaching the Wimbledon quarter-finals and his first ATP Masters 1000 final last month in Cincinnati (l. to Medvedev). His tenacious and reliable brand of tennis has yielded plenty of wins over top players, particularly when they’re not at their best. If Federer gets off to the slow starts that he displayed in his first two rounds this week, the Belgian will be sure to take advantage.

Fifth-seeded Russian Daniil Medvedev meets German qualifier Dominik Koepfer, who had just two tour-level wins to his name prior to this week. Medvedev is arguably the most in-form player on tour at the moment, fresh off his first Masters 1000 title in Cincinnati (d. Goffin) and holding a 17-2 record since the end of the grass-court season. But the 23-year-old will have added pressure against Koepfer as he looks to reach his first Grand Slam quarter-final.

“As everybody says, before the tournament I was one of the favourites. Probably unconsciously I was looking in the second week, at the draw,” he said. “I’m trying to convince myself to look at match by match.”

Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov and #NextGenATP Aussie Alex de Minaur face off for a pivotal moment in both of their careers. Dimitrov seeks his first quarter-final in New York, while De Minaur looks to build on what is already his best Grand Slam result. The 20-year-old Aussie has excelled on hard courts this season, lifting his first two ATP Tour titles in Sydney (d. Seppi) and Winston-Salem (d. Fritz). Dimitrov has endured a difficult season by his lofty standards, but the 2017 Nitto ATP Finals champion is capable of beating anyone when he’s at his best.

ORDER OF PLAY – SUNDAY, 1 September 2019

Arthur Ashe Stadium start 12:00
[3] Roger Federer vs [15] David Goffin
WTA match

NB 7:00 pm
WTA match
[1] Novak Djokovic vs [23] Stan Wawrinka

Louis Armstrong Stadium start 11:00
Three WTA matches

NB 5:00 pm
[5] Daniil Medvedev vs [Q] Dominik Koepfer

Grandstand start 11:00
WTA match
Grigor Dimitrov vs Alex de Minaur
WTA match
[8] Marcel Granollers/Horacio Zeballos vs [10] Rajeev Ram/Joe Salisbury

Court No. 17 start 11:00
[12] Kevin Krawietz/Andreas Mies vs Marcelo Arevalo/Jonny O’Mara
WTA match
[16] Oliver Marach/Jurgen Melzer vs Marius Copil/Nick Kyrgios
[2] Lukasz Kubot/Marcelo Melo vs Leonardo Mayer/Joao Sousa
WTA match

Court No. 17 NB 1:00pm
Two WTA matches
[13] Robin Haase/Wesley Koolhof vs Pablo Carreno Busta/Feliciano Lopez
Mixed doubles match

Experience prevailed over youth in an epic third-round battle on Saturday between No. 13 seed Gael Monfils and Denis Shapovalov. The Frenchman weathered numerous inspired comebacks from the #NextGenATP Canadian to advance 6-7(5), 7-6(4), 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-3, with a visibly emotional Monfils accepting the roars of the crowd after three hours and 35 minutes of play.

“I think people love me because I play with my heart. I fight. It’s always something special with me,” Monfils said. “You never know how and what I can do on the court. I think that’s why the people like that, a little bit [of] mystery part of me.

“I like the way I am now. I like the way the crowd is behind me. I love the energy here. I’m happy.”

Monfils and Shapovalov arrived in top form for their showdown in Louis Armstrong Stadium, having not dropped a set in their first two rounds. They both came out swinging and produced more winners than errors in the opening set, but it was Shapovalov who dictated most of the exchanges with aggressive all-court flair. In what would become a trend throughout the night, the 20-year-old twice fought back from down a break before storming through the first-set tie-break.

The Frenchman produced his own Houdini act in the second set, though. Shapovalov served for a two-set lead at 5-4, but Monfils crawled back by mixing up electric winners with off-pace shots. The No. 13 seed held the lead throughout the tie-break and levelled the match.

Monfils continued to ride his momentum, grabbing the third set with a single break of serve at 2-2 and sprinting out to a two-break, 4-1 advantage in the third set. But with his new coach, former Top 10 player Mikhail Youzhny, urging him on, the Canadian began to resurface. Sensing he had no choice but to gamble, Shapovalov went for broke from the baseline and continued to find the corners. When Monfils failed to serve out the match at 5-4 and sent a forehand wide, the 20-year-old threw his arms up and motioned for the crowd to get out of their seats.

But his biggest comeback was still to come. Monfils rallied from 2/5 in the fourth-set tie-break and earned a match point at 6/5, but Shapovalov bravely erased with it a huge forehand. Two points later, the crowd gasped as Monfils double faulted to send the match to a decider.

The Frenchman showed incredible mental toughness and rebounded immediately, pushing Shapovalov around the baseline to break at 2-1 in the fifth set. Shapovalov saved another match point on his serve at 2-5 with a blistering backhand, but Monfils made good on his third chance and both men embraced at the net after their hard-fought battle.

Next up for Monfils is Spaniard Pablo Andujar, a winner earlier in the day over Kazakh Alexander Bublik. Andujar is through to the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time at age 33.

World No. 70 Pablo Andujar arrived in New York with just two tour-level wins on hard courts this season. So by reaching his first Grand Slam fourth round at the US Open on Saturday, the Spaniard defied the odds. But that feat in and of itself is nothing compared to what the 33-year-old has been through over the past several years.

As recently as last February, Andujar was outside the Top 1,800 in the ATP Rankings after undergoing three elbow surgeries over a span of 13 months — from March 2016 to April 2017 — with three different doctors.

“When I made the [decision to undergo the] third surgery, I said to myself and to my wife, ‘If this doesn’t go well, I will retire. It’s been too much time trying every month with the physios, with the doctors. It’s not helping, it’s not improving. So this is my last chance,’” Andujar told ATPTour.com.

The Spaniard’s first two surgeries targeted a tendon. Medical imagery showed that his elbow tendon was “very bad” and “not normal,” Andujar said.

“We probably focussed on the tendon and maybe from the first time it was the nerve,” Andujar said. “If we could go now four years ago, then I would do things differently. But we didn’t know that.”

But a new doctor Andujar saw told him they would focus on a nerve in his elbow for the third surgery, reinserting it from the back of his elbow to the upper part of his elbow, making Andujar less nervous about going under the knife again.

“It was different,” Andujar said. “In a way I had some faith and thought, ‘Okay, this man is telling me something different, so at least I will try to get it and hopefully it goes well.’”

The surgery worked, but it wasn’t as if everything was back to normal immediately. There was still plenty of uncertainty involved.

“I was fortunate. I was lucky that everything went well. Of course there were eight or nine months until I played once again in competition… in 2018,” Andujar said. I was feeling [it] a little bit, but I think I was competitive once again.”

The former World No. 32 was happy to spend a lot of time with his family and friends while he was away from the court, as he didn’t get to enjoy those opportunities as often during the more than a decade that he had already spent as a professional. The pain in his elbow was not preventing him from living a normal life.

But upon his return in January 2018, Andujar lost five of his first six matches at all levels. However, in just his eighth tournament in 18 months, then-World No. 598 Andujar won an ATP Challenger Tour event held at Juan Carlos Ferrero’s academy in Alicante, Spain. The next week, at the Grand Prix Hassan II, an ATP 250 event, Andujar became the lowest-ranked tour-level titlist since then-World No. 550 Lleyton Hewitt at Adelaide in 1998.

“They are both amazing,” Andujar said of his run here in New York and his ATP 250 triumph last year. “But Marrakech, I was not back on the [ATP] Tour yet. I was practising already a little bit, but my ranking was so low. I would say this one is unbelievable, it’s amazing, but I [am] already on the circuit. I am No. 70 in the world, I am playing. I am competitive again. In Marrakech I was not. That’s the big difference.”

Since that triumph, Andujar has won five ATP Challenger Tour titles — including another victory in Alicante — and he also made the final in Marrakech in 2019. But perhaps his performance at the US Open, where he had never previously advanced past the second round, has been one of the most impressive of all. He lost only nine games against Alexander Bublik on Saturday.

“He’s great. He was playing great tennis,” Bublik said. “He outlasted me in all the points in the match. He was returning everything, being super solid, passing me when I was going to volley. He played great.”

It’s been a dream performance for the Spaniard, capturing seven consecutive sets to battle through to the fourth round. If you would have predicted this run before the tournament, even Andujar may not have agreed.

“Honestly I think I wouldn’t believe you,” Andujar said. “It’s unbelievable. It’s amazing. For me it’s something that I don’t realise yet.”

Andujar’s idol, Ferrero, reached the final of the US Open in 2003. And the former World No. 1 had plenty of nice things to say about his countryman after the four-time ATP Tour champion beat Bublik.

“He is a super-nice person and super worker and I always had and have very good words about him. I am so happy seeing him having this result,” Ferrero told ATPTour.com. “[It is] super motivational and people from now on can believe that after [getting] through injuries all can come back to a normal way of work and results.”

“Somebody like this talking in that way about me?” Andujar said. “I have no words.”

The Spaniard doesn’t need any. At the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, his tennis has been doing the talking for him. He’ll hope to keep that going in the Round of 16 against Gael Monfils or Denis Shapovalov.