NEW YORK (AP) — Top-seeded Jannik Sinner reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals by shaking off a slow start and coming through in the clutch at the end of tiebreakers that decided the first two sets, then pulling away to get past No. 14 Tommy Paul 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5), 6-1 on Monday night.
Two weeks removed from being cleared in a doping case stemming from two positive tests in March, Sinner moved into a showdown against 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev, the only past winner at Flushing Meadows still in the men's field.
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NEW YORK (AP) — Top-seeded Jannik Sinner reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals by shaking off a slow start and coming through in the clutch at the end of tiebreakers that decided the first two sets, then pulling away to get past No. 14 Tommy Paul 7-6 (3), 7-6 (5), 6-1 on Monday night.
Tommy Paul, of the United States, serves to Jannik Sinner, of Italy, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Tommy Paul, of the United States, returns a shot against Jannik Sinner, of Italy, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Jannik Sinner, of Italy, returns a shot to Tommy Paul, of the United States, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Tommy Paul, of the United States, returns a shot to Jannik Sinner, of Italy, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Jannik Sinner, of Italy, returns a shot to Tommy Paul, of the United States, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Tommy Paul, of the United States, reacts against Jannik Sinner, of Italy, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Jannik Sinner, of Italy, reacts against Tommy Paul, of the United States, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Sinner, a 23-year-old from Italy, claimed his first Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January by defeating Medvedev in five sets in the final after dropping the first two. They also met in the Wimbledon quarterfinals in July, and Medvedev won that one.
“It’s going to be a lot of running,” Sinner said, “so hopefully (I’ll) be ready physically.”
Against Paul, Sinner was not at his best at the outset, falling behind by a double-break at 4-1 after 20 minutes at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“That’s where you want to be. ... It’s definitely different than any other setting,” Paul said. “It’s electric.”
A loud crowd was backing the American, to no one's surprise.
As the match went on, plenty of chants of “U-S-A!” or “Let's go, Tommy! Let's go!” rang out. There also were several moments where spectators clapped after faults by Sinner — considered poor etiquette in tennis, that drew repeated admonishments from the chair umpire, who pleaded for no noise between first and second serves.
Sinner finished the initial set with 15 unforced errors on the forehand side alone, but he cleaned that up quickly and closed the match with just six the rest of the way.
“There are some ups and downs, obviously, in best-of-five. That’s normal to have,” Sinner said. “But finding my rhythm in the end of the match hopefully helps ... in the next match.”
Everything hinged on the tiebreakers. The first was tied 3-all, before Sinner grabbed the last four points. Paul led 5-4 in the second, but Sinner took the last three points.
That meant Sinner has now won 14 of his past 15 tiebreakers, a stretch that dates to a tournament in Halle, Germany, in June. The lone exception was one he lost against Medvedev at Wimbledon.
Sinner dropped the first set he played at the U.S. Open, but he's won the next 12.
Paul was trying to get his third career quarterfinal and first at Flushing Meadows. He also was trying to become the first American to beat a man ranked No. 1 at the U.S. Open since Andre Agassi eliminated Lleyton Hewitt in 2002.
Instead, Paul fell to 0-6 at majors against players ranked in the top 10.
Sinner improved to 32-2 with four titles on hard courts in 2024 and he's now reached at least the quarterfinals at all four Slams this year.
Earlier Monday, the No. 5-seeded Medvedev picked up a 6-0, 6-1, 6-3 victory over Nuno Borges that briefly was interrupted early in the third set when the electronic line-calling system was shut down because of a fire alarm.
The other quarterfinal on the top half of the men's bracket will be No. 10 Alex de Minaur vs. No. 25 Jack Draper. De Minaur beat Jordan Thompson 6-0, 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in an all-Australian matchup, while Draper became the first British man in the U.S. Open quarterfinals since Andy Murray in 2016 by defeating Tomas Machac 6-3, 6-1, 6-2.
The men's quarterfinals Tuesday are No. 4 Alexander Zverev vs. No. 12 Taylor Fritz, and No. 9 Grigor Dimitrov vs. No. 20 Frances Tiafoe.
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Jannik Sinner, of Italy, returns a shot to Tommy Paul, of the United States, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Tommy Paul, of the United States, serves to Jannik Sinner, of Italy, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Tommy Paul, of the United States, returns a shot against Jannik Sinner, of Italy, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Jannik Sinner, of Italy, returns a shot to Tommy Paul, of the United States, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Tommy Paul, of the United States, returns a shot to Jannik Sinner, of Italy, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Jannik Sinner, of Italy, returns a shot to Tommy Paul, of the United States, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Tommy Paul, of the United States, reacts against Jannik Sinner, of Italy, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Jannik Sinner, of Italy, reacts against Tommy Paul, of the United States, during a fourth round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Before he ran for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, David McCormick was a big name on Wall Street.
He was the CEO of the world's largest hedge fund, a world-traveled executive who was sought after for speaking engagements and prominent board positions.
His wealth and connections got him flagged by Republicans as someone who could both raise campaign cash and pay his own way for a Senate campaign.
But McCormick's Wall Street days haven't been such an asset of late. They provided grist for attacks by Republican primary rivals in McCormick's failed 2022 run for Senate and now by Democrats in his challenge to third-term Sen. Bob Casey.
Casey, in speeches and ads, hammers away at investments made by Bridgewater Associates while McCormick was CEO, including in Chinese companies that are considered part of Beijing's military and surveillance industrial complex.
“While I was fighting for union rights and fighting for working families in Pennsylvania, he was making a lot of money investing in China," Casey recently told a union crowd at a Teamsters hall in suburban Harrisburg. "He not only invested in Chinese companies, he invested in companies that built the Chinese military."
McCormick declined an interview request.
The need to fend off accusations that he profited at America’s expense comes at an unfortunate time for McCormick as China's relationship with Washington has grown increasingly tense.
But Bridgewater was hardly alone.
U.S. investment in Chinese companies surged while McCormick was Bridgewater’s CEO as hedge funds, institutional investors and fund managers plunged money into those same companies.
Some still do, according to a congressional report released this year after both the Trump and Biden administrations tried to block American investment in what they viewed as China's military and surveillance apparatus.
America's political community soured on China as early as 2016, but the U.S. financial sector “plowed right through that,” said Derek Scissors, a China specialist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington who served on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The economic ties extend beyond Wall Street. Semiconductor companies, farmers, tech and others in manufacturing rely on China for customers or components, Scissors said.
As Bridgewater’s CEO in 2019, McCormick described China as America’s “most defining bilateral relationship of our time,” even as calls began in Washington to block American investments in Chinese companies that could pose a threat to U.S. security.
As a candidate, McCormick has described China as an “existential” threat to the United States. He called for the federal government to develop a comprehensive strategy for America to outperform China economically and technologically, and said his experience with China means he can go “toe to toe” with its government on trade issues.
But McCormick also defends himself, both minimizing Bridgewater’s investments in China, saying it was 2% of the company’s assets, and describing investment in China as “unavoidable” because of client expectations and the rapid growth of that country's economy.
In a book he published last year, he wrote: “As is, U.S. dollars finance Communist China’s most egregious acts and ambitions.”
While campaigning, McCormick barely talks about his time at the hedge fund. If he mentions it at all, he tells audiences he ran a “financial firm” or an “investment firm.”
Instead, he dwells on other entries on his resume. Those include playing football and wrestling in high school, graduating from the U.S. military academy at West Point and serving with the Army in the first Gulf War, where he won a Bronze Star.
But if he is not talking up his Wall Street days, Wall Street does not seem to care. In his two campaigns for Senate, super political action committees that support McCormick have raised tens of millions of dollars and counting from the finance world.
McCormick, 59, earned a Ph.D from Princeton University, ran the online auction house FreeMarkets Inc., which had its name on a skyscraper in Pittsburgh during the tech boom, and served in senior positions in President George W. Bush’s administration.
There, he likes to say, he gained a reputation as a tough negotiator with the Chinese when tasked with Commerce Department policy over export controls of sensitive technologies.
When Bridgewater Associates hired McCormick in 2009 to be president, its founder, Ray Dalio, had a reputation for being bullish on China.
Today, Bridgewater is as prominent as any foreign investment firm in China.
Regulatory disclosures in China show that it has at least 10 billion renminbi — or at least $1.4 billion, and maybe much more — invested in Chinese assets there, said Harry Handley, a senior associate at Z-Ben Advisors, a financial advisory firm based in Shanghai.
That is the most of any foreign firm, Handley said.
McCormick, who was an executive at Bridgewater for 12 years, joined the company when investment banks, venture capital firms and hedge funds were fueling an investment boom in a growing Chinese economy.
“The Chinese economy was doing well for a long time and there was money to be made there,” said Greg Brown, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor of finance who researches hedge funds.
McCormick spent his last five years at Bridgewater as co-CEO or CEO, and those were big years for investing in China. That is when Chinese regulators relaxed restrictions over foreign investment in stocks and bonds, unleashing several years of particularly heavy investment, Brown and others say.
Bridgewater forged a reputation among foreign firms as an aggressive investor in Chinese companies — "over the past few years they’ve kind of dominated among the global firms in China," Handley said — and reputedly handled money for the Chinese government.
In early 2022, McCormick left Bridgewater to run for Senate in Pennsylvania in a seven-way GOP primary.
Bridgewater's connections with China followed him.
In one attack by a Republican primary rival, a video by Mehmet Oz 's campaign showed “finance bros” Chad and Tad at a bar when Tad asks Chad, “Do you think saying ‘I invest in China’ is a good pickup line?” Chad responds, “Investing in foreign adversaries always plays!”
At a rally days before the 2022 primary, former President Donald Trump, aiming to help Oz, his endorsed candidate, derided McCormick as having been with a company that “managed money for communist China."
McCormick lost narrowly to Oz.
This summer, Casey's campaign launched two ads that ran in Pennsylvania’s major TV markets attacking McCormick over Bridgewater's investments in companies tied to China’s military.
“Dave McCormick sold us out to make a fortune,” say hard-hatted speakers in one ad. “That’s the real Dave McCormick.”
McCormick has tried to tie Casey to China, saying Casey had money invested in Chinese companies through mutual funds and that the Casey-supported clean-energy policies of the Biden administration are making the U.S. more reliant on Chinese lithium batteries and solar panels.
Meanwhile, each candidate is trying to show that he is the tougher one on China. That has put the contrast between McCormick the CEO and McCormick the candidate into sharp relief, with McCormick explicitly calling for an end to U.S. investment in technologies in China that are critical to national security or tied to its military.
“McCormick has changed his tune because he’s a political type,” Scissors said. “If he was in the business community, he’d still be pushing for relations with China. Because that’s what they do.”
Follow Marc Levy at https://x.com/timelywriter.
This combination of photos taken in Pennsylvania shows Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., left, at a campaign event, Sept. 13, 2024, in Wilkes-Barre, and David McCormick, the Republican nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, at a campaign event, April 25, 2024, in Harrisburg. (AP Photo)
