About to begin. Thiem to serve first. Asked in a post-match interview what the balls looked like during her quarter-final romp against Elise Mertens, considering it seemed she was seeing them so large, Victoria Azarenka’s response was: “Yellow.” Ask a sill question, get a silly answer. Back to the matter at hand, besides the obvious distraction of that curious soup strainer on his upper lip, how will Alex de Minaur go about turning the tables on Dominic Thiem and win a major quarter at the first time of asking? It’s a question Linda Pearce is asking in this excellent piece on the emerging Australian. Over on the men’s draw, Daniil Medvedev overcame shoulder issues and, ahem, the mother of all tennis ailments - cramp - to beat Andrey Rublev in straight sets and book a place in the semis. Quite a bit to catch up on today. Speaking of Azarenka, she is one of nine mothers to have competed at this year’s tournament. I’m not overly literate on such statistics, but surely this is some sort of record. Earlier on, two mums - moms? - faced each other in another quarter-final, with six-time winner Serena Williams coming from a set down to beat Tsvetana Pironkova. Here is Kevin Mitchell’s mother of a match report. Hello and welcome to our live coverage of this US Open men’s quarter-final between Dominic Thiem of Austria and Alex de Minaur, the Australian 21st seed. Arthur Ashe Stadium is quite the stage for De Minaur, who is through to the last eight in a grand slam for the first time. The 21-year-old will know he is in a match against Thiem, the world No 2 and US Open second seed who is now the best player left in the draw after Novak Djokovic’s sensational default. The Austrian is unbeaten in two previous meetings with De Minaur and is an overwhelming favourite to make it 3-0 in New York. But there is no denying De Minaur is on an upward spiral, so this has the makings of a good’un. Victoria Azarenka has just completed a hatchet job on Elise Mertens, beating the 16th seed 6-1, 6-o on Arthur Ashe Stadium, so we are 15-20 minutes away from the men’s quarter. If you’d like to get involved, do so by email or Twitter - @scott_heinrich Oh, before I forget ... R U OK?