NEW YORK (AP) — Carlos Alcaraz was cruising along in the U.S. Open's third round, leading by a set and a break after taking 10 of the first 14 games in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday, when an awkward step while striking a forehand caused an issue with his right knee.
The No. 2-seeded Alcaraz, who won the first of his five Grand Slam titles at Flushing Meadows in 2022, got broken for the first time in the tournament, then took a medical timeout and had his leg massaged by a trainer. Problem solved: Alcaraz rolled through the rest of the match, never dropping another game, and beat No. 32 Luciano Darderi 6-2, 6-4, 6-0.
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Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, shakes hands with Emma Raducanu, of Great Britain, after winning their third-round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Luciano Darderi, of Italy, reacts after losing a point to Carlos Alcaraz, of Spain, during the third round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Carlos Alcaraz, of Spain, returns a shot to Luciano Darderi, of Italy, during the third round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A trainer works on Carlos Alcaraz, of Spain, during a medical timeout in the second set against Luciano Darderi, of Italy, during the third round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
It was the first, brief hint of any trouble for the 22-year-old Alcaraz this week — well, other than the hair-cutting mistake by his brother that led to a shaved head.
He didn't let teasing from Frances Tiafoe about that bother him, and Alcaraz didn't seem too concerned about what went on with his knee against Darderi, a 23-year-old Italian who was making his debut as a seed at a major.
“I just felt something that was not working good in the knee, but after five, six points, it was gone,” Alcaraz said, describing the visit from the trainer as precautionary. “I'm going to talk with my team, but I'm not worried about it.”
Other than that blip, his play was terrific in the 1-hour, 44-minute match.
He delivered 31 winners to just 12 unforced errors and won 70 of the 105 points that lasted four shots or fewer.
“It's too bad that I ran into Carlos in the third round, because right now it's impossible to play against Jannik (Sinner) or Carlos. They are the two whose level is above everyone else's,” Darderi said. “Everyone knew going into today that my chances were not the highest.”
Alcaraz, who faces Arthur Rinderknech in the fourth round, improved his career Grand Slam record to 80-13. Only Boris Becker, Bjorn Borg and Rafael Nadal were younger — by a month or two — when they got their 80th match win at majors.
The 82nd-ranked Rinderknech reached the fourth round at a Slam for the first time by defeating Benjamin Bonzi 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2. Bonzi had won both of his first two matches in five sets, including in a wild one against 2021 U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev, who was fined $42,500 by the tournament for his meltdown after play was delayed when a photographer wandered onto the court. Emma Raducanu's best run at Flushing Meadows since her 2021 trophy ended with a 6-1, 6-2 loss to No. 9 Elena Rybakina. Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka and 2024 runner-up Jessica Pegula advanced, while Taylor Townsend upset No. 5 Mirra Andreeva 7-5, 6-2; and Barbora Krejcikova beat No. 10 Emma Navarro in three sets. No. 4 Taylor Fritz won a late match but No. 6 Ben Shelton and No. 17 Frances Tiafoe were eliminated, leaving just two American men remaining.
Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek, Naomi Osaka and Jannik Sinner are among the players scheduled to play on Saturday as the third round wraps up.
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Elena Rybakina, of Kazakhstan, shakes hands with Emma Raducanu, of Great Britain, after winning their third-round match of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Luciano Darderi, of Italy, reacts after losing a point to Carlos Alcaraz, of Spain, during the third round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Carlos Alcaraz, of Spain, returns a shot to Luciano Darderi, of Italy, during the third round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
A trainer works on Carlos Alcaraz, of Spain, during a medical timeout in the second set against Luciano Darderi, of Italy, during the third round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Friday, Aug. 29, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Ewan McGregor, for a fleeting moment after “Trainspotting” came out, felt like a rock star.
It wasn’t his first significant project; it wasn’t even his first film with director Danny Boyle. And he was, in his words, fairly arrogant and cocksure at the time. But that kinetic film about four heroin addicts in late-1980s Scotland was and, 30 years later, remains defining — in his career, in the culture and in his understanding of what true artistic satisfaction can feel like.
“It’s very much in that early part of my career, and of course, even today, probably the most important piece of work that I was involved in, just because it had such a massive effect on my life. Not only because of what it did, but because of how it felt to make,” McGregor told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “It set the bar unknowingly high because it’s been quite hard to match ever since.”
Both McGregor and Boyle are a little wistful about the time, and what they made, on the eve of its 30th anniversary re-release. Starting Friday, a 4K digital restoration will be in theaters nationwide. Though “Trainspotting” was very much of its moment with its Britpop soundtrack, its Thatcher-era grit, its darkly comedic tone and shrewd blend of giddy highs and tragic lows, it’s also one that has stood the unforgiving test of time.
“You get kids coming up to you who are 17 who said they’d just seen it,” Boyle said. “I could be their grandfather … yet it still spoke to them.”
Boyle was a hot commodity after “Shallow Grave,” a 1994 black comedy about flatmates in Edinburgh starring McGregor, and Hollywood was calling. Literally. A peak-famous Sharon Stone cold-called him and asked if he’d want to come make a film with her. But he had his sights set on Irvine Welsh’s buzzy debut novel, teaming once again with screenwriter John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald.
The budget would be small, 1.5 million pounds or about $1.9 million, and the shoot would be quick and local. They didn’t know what they didn’t know: Boyle remembers asking his cinematographer, the late Brian Tufano, if they could use an anal probe camera for the “worst toilet in Scotland” scene.
“I remember him saying, ‘Well, Danny, yes, you can get that. But I’m not sure how Ewan and his family and agent will feel about that,’” Boyle said with a laugh. “He tempered my kind of extreme way of approaching this material.”
And somehow it all worked, driven by youthful energy, a bit of arrogance and a passionate commitment to the material.
“‘Trainspotting’ had to be made that way,” said McGregor, who was 23 at the time. “It would have been a disaster if it had been done differently.”
For McGregor, at least part of the vitality came from the fact that they were shooting on film; money was going through the camera on every take.
“We shoot on these cards now, and it just doesn’t matter anymore,” McGregor said. “There’s no natural sort of like rhythm to filmmaking like there used to be then. … I think back to ‘Shallow Grave’ and ‘Trainspotting’ and it feels almost like a different job.”
Boyle too has been chasing that kind of innocence ever since. He said he might have come close on his upcoming film “Ink,” with Jack O’Connell.
“It was liberating not having enough money because you don’t have that limitation of thinking, oh, that’s going to be too extreme for the studio or for the audience reach we’re meant to have,” Boyle said. “You could make it so that if it didn’t work, you just, you know, sulk away with your tail between your legs and call back Sharon Stone and say ‘I was wrong.’”
Like any film about drugs, there was a fair amount of discourse around its release. U.S. presidential candidate Bob Dole even denounced it, unseen, for romanticizing heroin during his campaign. But the film was in the conversation — and it had an enviable group of supporters, including Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker and Blur’s Damon Albarn, both of whom provided songs for the film.
After “Trainspotting” became a hit, life changed profoundly for McGregor. In London, he said, “it was madness.” At the time he was sharing a flat with his co-star Jonny Lee Miller, Jude Law and Sean Pertwee. When they’d go out to clubs, they felt like rock stars.
“There was a real energy around it,” McGregor said. “We were part of that, you see, the Blur and Oasis and Pulp and The Verve and all of that amazing music that was happening then. We were the sort of movie version of it, I guess, because Danny knew what he was doing with the soundtrack and because the novel was so huge and current and … and maybe because it was ours. It was British and it wasn’t pandering to America. We didn’t make it for America.”
Boyle hopes that audiences take a chance on “Trainspotting” in the theater, whether they're revisiting it or seeing it for the first time. It was, he said, made with an absolute love of cinema.
“It’s very indebted to ‘Goodfellas,’ which also has that feeling of: You are here to be absolutely assaulted by an experience,” Boyle said. “You know, you have given us your money and you’ve given us your time to be here for 90 minutes, two hours, whatever it is, and we promise, we promise to deliver everything to you that we can.”
FILE - Director Danny Boyle poses in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 6, 2017. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Director Danny Boyle poses in Beverly Hills, Calif., on March 6, 2017. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - John Hodge, screenwriter for "Trainspotting," left, director Danny Boyle, center, and producer Andrew Macdonald appear during a music video shoot in London on June 26, 1996. (AP Photo/Louisa Buller, File)
