A healthy Karolína Muchová is making a run at the US Open, setting up meeting with Jasmine Paolini

2023 US Open semifinalist Karolína Muchová is making another run in New York. She’ll next face Jasmine Paolini, who has the most grand slam match wins this year on the WTA Tour.

When Karolína Muchová is healthy… That’s the start of a sentence tennis fans have uttered multiple times throughout the 28-year-old Czech’s career. Muchová has gone deep before in grand slam events, but she’s also been halted before by injuries. Now, in New York at the US Open and unseeded, she’s once again reminding the world what kind of player she is when at full fitness: dangerous – and a threat to go deep into the fortnight. Muchová, with a game she says was partially inspired by Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, has reached the fourth round after a 6-4, 6-2 win against Russian Anastasia Potapova on Saturday. “It’s easy for me to be motivated,” Muchová, currently ranked No. 52, told reporters. “And to playing on these big events, it’s just why I play tennis and what I play for.” Muchová’s next opponent is just one of two women’s players to make the second week of every grand slam this year: That would be Italy’s Jasmine Paolini, who defeated Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-4 Saturday. (The other woman to reach the second week in every major this year is defending US Open champion Coco Gauff, who is on the opposite half of the draw.)