On the women’s side, Schiavone is out. Taken down by Sloan Stephens, which sucks because she’s always been one of those “OMG, here comes the next big thing for American women’s tennis. Oh wait, false alarm.” types. Like pretty much everyone besides the Williamses.
With no Rafa in play, I have to pick someone who has a realistic chance to win the whole thing.
Why not go with my second ever fav? Go Fed!
I’m no cynic, but I doubt it. McEnroe was an early supporter of Young and I think he’s devastated to see what a mess he’s turned into.
I’ve just got back from two days at the Open. We saw the first set of the Raonic match, but then abandoned it as the tennis was so bad. Raonic had nothing but his serve (but what a serve - he hit two second serves at 134 mph. There again, he was double-faulting with alarming frequency).
We saw an impressive Jack Sock beat Mayer. Mayer retired apparently complaining of dizziness, but I think the biggest injury was to his pride.
Saw Bartoli beat American Jame Hampton. At 6-6 in the second set the rains came befre they played a point of the tie-break. On resumption, Bartoli was booed by the crowd for not giving Hampton a proper warm-up. When Hampton came to the net to warm up volleys, Bartoli absolutely pounded every ball, some right at Hampton, others out of reach. Then when they were warming up serves, Bartoli decided to practice her returns. I don’t know the rules/etiquette at the pro level, but at lower levels you are not supposed to practice returns. Hampton responded by hitting most of her practice serves so wide that Bartoli couldn’t hit them.
Tsonga looked good, despite going mentally absent for part of the third set.
Holy Cow - just checking today’s results and I see that Jack Sock and Steve Johnson (ex-USC player) knocked off the one seeds Mirnyi and Nestor in the doubles. I wanted to watch that match but we had to leave to get our flight.
Stephens is all of 19, so I’d say she’s on schedule or ahead of it. It takes time for a player to develop, and Stephens just broke into the top 50 this summer. She’s the youngest player in that group. This is a big win for her, much as it’s always nice to see Schiavone do well.
Wow, I hadn’t seen that. Great win for a partnership with a great name (Johnson-Sock makes me think of the Red Hot Chili Peppers). That’s two big upsets for U.S. teams yesterday: Ryan Harrison and his brother Christian upset Fyrstenberg-Matkowski, the #4 seeds and the defending champions.
I was at the night session last night- if you blinked you might’ve missed it. Djokovic dumped serve in the first game of the match, then won 12 in a row, then Lorenzi held serve once (and raised his arms in mock-triumph) and Djokovic won six more in a row. The whole thing was over in 73 minutes. The whole thing was sort of uncomfortable. It took the crowd out of it. In the post-match interview Brad Gilbert made a wisecrack about Djokovic not breaking a sweat and the crowd booed him. Djokovic won more than twice as many points as Lorenzi, hit 32 winners to 10, and he won 9 out of 13 break points.
This is kind of the life of a professional tennis player who doesn’t have the kind of transcendent talent that a Federer or Nadal or Djokovic does or a huge serve or crazy speed. Lorenzi is a 30-year-old Italian player who has spent his whole career playing challengers and futures events. He’s his lifetime record in ATP events is 11-34. He’d never made it to the U.S. Open before (he made the other three majors in 2010 and in 2012 without winning a match in any of those events. He’s actually had a good year, won a couple of those lower-tier events and made some finals, so he’s ranked 69th, which is the best of his career. So he gets one U.S. Open match, gets drawn against Djokovic, and it’s over in an eyeblink. I felt for the guy.
Just to make things more fun, Serena’s match against Coco Vandeweghe went exactly the same way. Vandeweghe was obviously nervous. She double-faulted six times and missed more first serves than she made. In fact both matches ended on double faults. Serena was on, not that it took a first-class effort this time. She was really crushing the ball and I was glad to see her play in person because I hadn’t done that before. I’m hoping tonight’s matches are a little closer or at least go a little longer. The night session ended at 10!
Janko Tipsarevic (#8) is down two sets to Rufin, a young French player. It looks like he’ll at least push it to a fourth set. A couple of other high seeds were upset yesterday, although I don’t think anyone considered them big threats to win the tournamnet: Juan Monaco (#10) lost in five sets to Garcia-Lopez and Carolina Wozniacki (#8), who has been having knee problems and needed treatment during the match, lost 2 & 2 to Begu of Romania.
David Nalbandian withdrew from the tournament yesterday because of an injury. Del Potro is going to play lucky loser Florent Serra today instead.
The Sharapova match last night was really a carbon copy of the Serena and Djokovic matches: she won 6-0, 6-1 in 54 minutes, losing one less game and needing one less minute to complete the match compared to Serena. But you couldn’t help but be impressed. Sharapova hit 16 winners in the first set alone and it felt like she hit winners off about 50 percent of Dominguez Lino’s serve. She was just crushing the ball. Murray also won easily but there were a lot of quality rallies and real shotmaking, so that one was more entertaining. Too bad Kim Clijsters is already out of the singles. You couldn’t think Clijsters really had a shot to win this year and Robson was too good. She’ll be missed in the sport for sure.
Martin Klizan appears to be putting on a Rosol-caliber performance against Tsonga on the Grandstand. He’s up two sets to one and just consolidated a break to grab a 2-0 lead in the fourth set. Klizan is a 23-year-old Slovakian lefty who just broke into the top 50 for the first time. And now a second break. 3-0 Klizan in the fourth, and it looks like the men’s #5 is going down. Tsonga is in Murray’s quarter, so it’s good news for Murray (who looked strong last night) and creates an opportunity for Cilic and Nishikori to go a little futher.
Impromptu press conference with Andy Roddick in five minutes. I hope all is well.
Mardy Fish and Victoria Azarenka both flirted with disaster today before winning, and Sloane Stephens lost the first set but looks like she’s about to close out her match. Meanwhile Andy Roddick is announcing that he is retiring at the end of this tournament. He’s turning 30 tomorrow and says he doesn’t have the health and commitment to play another year. There were reports he’d told some of the people at Wimbledon that it was going to be his last year, so that was a hint. He said he’d always wanted to finish up at this tournament and that he knew when he played his first-round match here that it was time to go. He did win that match and will play Bernard Tomic, the young Australian player, in the second round. If he gets through that he could face Del Potro in the fourth round.
Very interesting night and day. Venus played very badly but managed to keep herself in her match against Kerber before she finally went down 7-5 in the third. The crowd was pulling very hard for Venus, which was good to see - and it was equally impressive that Kerber kept it together through that, because it was clearly bothering her. Venus is maybe the best player I’ve ever seen at staying competitive even when she’s playing badly. She made 60 errors and still had a chance to win the match (4-2 lead in the third). Despite that loss, Americans are doing really well in this tournament: Jack Sock is into the third round, Steve Johnson made the third round today, James Blake apparently looked great in beating Granollers yesterday, and a bunch of other American players are still around. Today figures to be a tough day since Ryan Harrison has to play Del Potro (looks like he’ll force a fourth set), Baker gets Tipsarevic, and Roddick will play Tomic tonight. Isner looks like he has a clear path to go another two rounds, though.
Li Na is out. She lost to Laura Robson, the young British player who beat Clijsters in the last round. That’s another really impressive win for Robson. Robson plays defending champ Stosur next.
Surprised that Roddick retired… but it seems like he’s going out the way he wants too… and most athletes get asked to leave instead of closing the door themselves…
Not to nitpick… but the constant “joking” about him being a winner because he goes home to Brooklyn Decker was … imo totally uncool. ESPN did it all night and others… Once Andy married that woman… to keep making what seems to me to be creepy comments about another man’s wife. Granted that woman made a career from her looks… but it still seemed creepy to me…
Holy crap.
I missed the news that Roddick is retiring. Good for him, honestly. It’s too hard to go on forever if your body is screaming to stop. Sad day(s) for tennis. I will miss him.
Wow, the more I think about it, the more bummed out I am. I really liked Roddick and he kind of represented to me the end of a huge era of high quality American men. I know we have our top guys out there now, but after Roddick, I think there has been a dip in quality compared to a decade or two ago.
And McEnroe reckons Tomic tanked against Roddick. At least McEnroe calls what he believes and I admire him for that. Not that I think it would have made a difference anyway.
Tomic never showed up. John isner has me yelling at the television!!
McEnroe was right. Tomic’s performance in the first two sets was lacking and that third set was a disgrace. I lost a lot of respect for him. He’s very talented but he needs to add some firepower and a lot of competitiveness to his game. Compare the way Kerber came to play Thursday night and what Tomic did lats night.
I respect your knowledge of the game and the players Marley, but I’ve never had much time for Tomic.
Maybe if he ever gets a coach that will instill the value of hard work he may be a chance of doing something. He just reminds me of Mark Phillipousis.
I have been wrong often but I’ll bet a six pack he will never win a major.
Tomic has a lot of talent since he’s already made the fourth round or quarters at two majors and he doesn’t turn 20 until next month. But I don’t plan to spend much energy on him either unless he gets an entirely new attitude.