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| - American Jennifer Brady credited reaching her first ever Grand Slam quarter-final Sunday with strengthening her body and mind, including with hours-long walks in her neighborhood during the coronavirus lockdown. The 25-year-old needed just 1hr 29min to sweep aside the three-time Grand Slam-winning German 6-1, 6-4 to move into the last eight of the US Open. "It's awesome. Really happy with making the quarter-finals here and hopefully I keep going," she said. Brady, seeded 28th, said she had transformed her game this year by improving her physical and mental strength. "I think I have improved on both aspects. I have gotten a lot fitter. I'm able to, you know, maintain my intensity from the beginning of the match all the way until the end," she explained. Brady, seeded 28th, broke serve four times and smashed 25 winners against the 17th-seeded Kerber, the 2016 US Open champion. It marked the first time Brady had made the fourth round at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York since 2017. She had failed to get past the first round in her last two outings. Her previous joint-best appearance at a Grand Slam came when she reached the last 16 of the Australian Open, also in 2017. "I don't think I was really ready physically or mentally to make the fourth round of two Slams in one year," she said. "(It) definitely came as a huge surprise to me. Honestly, I didn't really believe that I belonged at that level or that it was achievable for me." But now she says she feels like "a different player." "I'm not putting expectations on myself but also not surprised when I'm doing well at a tournament," she told reporters. Brady explained that her new fitness regime involved taking short, 10 or 15-minute walks after meals at her home in Boca Raton, Florida. During the lockdown, they increased to a couple of hours a day. "I took it to another level because I was just home and there was nothing else to do," she said. "I wouldn't say it was exercise. I would say meditative, probably. Just getting my mind off of things. Just focusing on myself and nature." pdh/rcw
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