Looks like Kim Clijsters kicked butt in her first match, and Federer cruised. Two seeded men lost but I don’t think either one is a surprise: John Isner over Hanescu (28), and Paul-Henri Mathieu (26) lost to Mikhail Youzhny.
In a way, Federer’s strength works against him in this comparison. Federer’s good enough on clay to basically always reach the final, so there are more clay-court matches between him and Nadal than on other surfaces.
For instance, Federer has won the last 5 US Opens, but Nadal has never reached a match with him. A few such matches may have improved Fed’s record in the head-to-head.
Going against the grain here and likely putting the hex on him by doing so, but what the heck, it’s how I feel.
I admit that coming into the Open, Fed’s rightly called the man to beat. He looked close to the Fed of old in his two last matches at Cincinnati what with the devastating FH, great anticipation, clutch serving and a functional BH. Having said that, I like Rafa’s chances as this is the first time in his career he’s come both mentally and physically fresh to the Open. Obviously not ideal that he’s also coming back from what could be a career-threatening recurring injury. But if it isn’t – and I think he’s been coy/smart in his comeback. Or so I am hoping. – he’ll only grow better and more confident as the rounds go by. Which is basically what happened at this year’s AO.
Should he reach The Final vs Fed, I like his chances to complete the Grand Slam.
Looking forward to tonight’s ceremony for Andre Agassi. I think it’s a little weird that they had Federer play during the day, but it makes sense to feature two American players (Roddick and Venus) during the first night and particularly when they are paying tribute to an American player.
You might remember that Agassi’s last match was against Benjamin Becker (no relation to the good Becker, and I don’t mean the Ted Danson show). But you are even less likely to know that Benni has not won a U.S. Open match since his defeat of Agassi in 2006. He lost his next match that year to Roddick and lost in the first round in 2007 (Philipp Petzscner) and in 2008 (Gianluco Naso). That streak is very likely to continue this year because he’s drawn the 10th seed, Fernando Verdasco, in the round one.
The scheduling issue was touched upon in the past two MS tournaments, as Rafa normally played the night matches and Fed the afternoon session. Not hunting for a cite, but when asked about it, Fed was rather evasive in his response, saying that he enjoyed great success playing at night but that he didn’t mind day sessions either – and then he added that he was quite aware that organizers would be more than likely to respond to any time requests he had.
Knowing how meticulous he is in his training, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he did, in fact, weigh the decision to play during the daytime heat against shorter recovery time between matches and chose the former. Considering that he does most of his hard core physical training in Dubai it might just be yet another wise decision on his part.
Sure, in a Slam you normally get two recovery days between matches so that might be a moot point. But there’s also the argument that completing matches first gives one a slight edge – specially if weather and suspensions become a factor.
Yes, Benjamin Becker has really entered the world of “tennis trivia” with that defeat of Andre and his subsequent failures.
Let’s do a little more trivia:
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Who was John McEnroe’s last match against and what was the result?
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Who did Andre play first in his first professional match?
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We all know the final meeting of Andrea and Sampras was Sampras’ last match, which he won and went out in a blaze of glroy. However, when did Andre play Pete Sampras for the first time? Result?
Tight but awful match for Venus right now. There have been some really exciting points because both players cover the court so well, but Venus isn’t healthy and she’s making errors all over the place. She’s just hanging on and hoping Dushevina blows it due to nerves. It’s hard to see Venus winning two sets like this although it’s true Dushevina is not looking that mentally tough.
Well shut my mouth. Venus won seven games in a row and won the match 6-7, 7-5, 6-3. She made a ton of errors but made up for it with a lot of winners and got better as the match went on. Dushevina stayed with her but didn’t play well at the big points. The knee problem doesn’t bode well for Venus’s chances of going deep in the tournament, but that was a really tough performance. And now Andy Roddick takes the court after 11 p.m.
Safina is getting close to being the victim of a huge upset here, playing Olivia Rogowska, an 18-year-old Australian. Rogowska won the first set in a tiebreak, but after Safina stormed through the second 6-2, I figured she would roll to the finish. Not so far. They’ve traded breaks twice, with Rogowska taking the lead twice and Safina unable to get things completely even. It’s 4-3 Rogowska right now.
Rogowska is ranked 167 in the world. As if the Safin siblings weren’t already infamous enough for their mental inconsistency, this would be a large hit to her reputation. It’s one thing to get blown out in the finals of a major event. Losing in the first round as the number one seed is a huge choke job.
I’m stumped on Mahaloth’s trivia questions. I was going to say Agassi’s first win was against a Brazilian player, but on review I think the first tournament he won was in Brazil, which is different. I thought Agassi was terrific as an analyst during Roddick’s match last night, and while I know he has more important things to do, I’d be very happy if he did that more often. The McEnroes did fine during the rest of the match but didn’t go nearly as deep.
There haven’t been any upsets of real note today. Igor Andreev (29) lost. Melanie Oudin, the girl from Georgia who made that surprise run at Wimbledon, won her first round match.
I didn’t manage to catch the match, but the Sportscenter guys did a little spotlight on Safina’s coach, and damn, does that guy look like an asshole. Even during Safina’s big comeback moments, he just kept shooting her disparaging looks and putting his head in his hands. Apparently he has a history of putting her down in public, even during her matches. I don’t know much about her except that she’s a phenom reputed to be emotionally insecure, but I hope she gets far in the tourney and fires his ass.
During the Safina match and during the postmatch analysis pretty much all of the announcers were really blasting her coach. Putting it in no uncertain terms that they do not approve of his “style” of coaching, his body language, his literal verbal language and anything else you can not like about him. I hope having his treatment of her become more public might put pressure on him to stop being a dick or to inspire Dinara to fire him.
Good question.
I believe the two first met in some junior tournament in 1980. Sampras was 9 and Agassi 10. Agassi was the winner.
It was painful to watch the last part of Ivanovic’s ouster. She kept pulling her viser down and seemed on the verge of bursting into tears.
Poor thing. It’s so much easier being the underdog than having all those expectations (and endorsements) piled on you.
I only saw part of Andy Murray’s match last night, but it changed my impression of Ernests Gulbis. Talk about uninspired play! He’s got the physical abilities but appeared to be making zero effort most of the time. His challenge attempts were pretty funny, though - he challenged on one shot that out by about six inches, and another that was out by almost a foot!
A few other surprising results from yesterday as I catch myself up. Ivo Karlovic lost in straight sets, which is probably good for Murray. Stan Wawrinka lost in five.
Benni Becker’s losing ways continued, but that’s not such a surprise. Including the Ivanovic match, the Bondarenkos went 2-0 yesterday and played six sets.
Does anyone else think it was very unclassy of Serena Williams to be making fun of Dinara Safina about her number 1 ranking?
Serena said something along the lines of “She deserves to be #1, she won Charleston and…” some other small, not that significant tournament that I can’t remember, then she broke out laughing not even a second afterwards.
Then she followed it up with, “I’ll just win another major and still be #2 I guess.”
Nothing but class the Williams are huh?
I haven’t heard anything about that, Covered_In_Bees! Can you link to a transcript or something? It doesn’t sound classy but I also refuse to get worked up about it. Serena’s the better player, and she’d be #1 if she wasn’t playing like crap at all the non-slam events (or skipping them). It’s gotten so bad that Safina would have kept the number one ranking even if she had lost her first-round match at the Open and Serena won the whole thing.
Also, what would any comments by Serena about her own ranking have to do with Venus?
My Google-Fu is generally pretty weak and I can’t find a transcript. It also may not be up anywhere yet. Give it a few days and I might be able to dig up something.
Yeah, that’s the reason why I brought it up. Serena is wholly in control of where she stands in the rankings, she seems more interested in talking shit than doing well in nonmajors.
So I was simply wondering if anyone else that was unclassy. Besides, we all have a hard time getting worked up over someone operating under their MO of “I’m a diva.” when we’re so used to it by now. If someone else were pulling it, then we could work up a rage I’m sure.
This is in reference to my very last sentence right? If so, nothing. I contemplated having it just be Serena, then I threw in their last name instead at the end when I had no particular reason to do so. So I retract anything aimed in the least towards Venus. I’m sure in the next week or so she’ll say something bitchy that can get its own post. For now it’s all Serena. 
If she was that blunt, I’m surprised I don’t see anything about it on ESPN or Sports Illustrated. Anyway we’ll see. It’s not that different from what she has said about this in the past, and I wonder why the hell people keep asking her about it.
I’m not ignoring it because I’m used to Serena being a diva. I just think people get too worked up over innocuous comments by athletes, and I think fans have inconsistent and sometimes ludicrous expectations about what athletes should say about themselves and their games. Serena thinks she is the better player and that she should be number one. She is supposed to think that. She’s a competitive athlete. And I think sports are better when the players are outspoken and honest with the fans and press instead of hiding behind cliche and sponsor-accomodating false modesty and politeness.
I can’t think of any time Venus has said anything like this. She’s usually more restrained than Serena is - although who isn’t?
She indeed was that blunt. I’ll do what I can to find a transcript or video, but be aware I don’t regularly visit any major tennis or sporting pages, so my hunt may take a while.
A quick YouTube search brings up nothing, just a bunch of shit from Wimbledon.
It probably doesn’t help that I’m not exactly sure when this interview took place. It might be old news and I’m just behind the times. 
Yeah, it was at Wimbledon that she said this (unless she said the same thing again recently).