World's top tennis stars
have descended upon the glorious Flushing Meadows for the last Grand Slam
tournament of the running season, the US Open Championships, in New York. One
week's play has been concluded this weekend and we have already witnessed some
eye-startling performances from both male and female contenders.
The men's singles draw
enters the third round from Saturday, whilst the female contestants will fight
for their berths in the quarter-final rounds. While the top seeds keep cruising
through their matches convincingly, there have been a number of disappointing
upsets, with some of the hot favorites falling out from the race to glory.
Summing up the men's singles,
the reigning world number one, Novak Djokovic, carried on his sublime run of
form and brushed aside his rivals in the opening two rounds comprehensively to
book a spot in the third round. The Serbian juggernaut registered straight sets
victories against Richard Berankis and Benjamin Becker for setting a third
round clash against the ATP Challenger Tour expert, Joao Sousa.
The King of Clay, Rafael
Nadal, has also been very impressive at the bottom of the draw and didn’t lose
a single set to reach the third round. The Spaniard has been absolutely
belligerent on her come back this season and is aiming to claim this Major
title to close the circuit on a high note. He will face the Croat veteran, Ivan
Dodig, in the third round.
On the other hand, the
defending champion, Andy Murray, was off to an easy start in the opening round
of the tournament but had a little stumble in his second round battle against
Leonardo Mayer. The Brit lost the third set of the match but eventually wrapped
up the proceedings at 7-5, 6-1, 3-6, 6-1, to enter the third round. The
unseeded German, Florian Mayer will face Murray next up.
Number four seed, David
Ferrer, and number five seed Tomas Berdych, also won their respective second
round clashes in comprehensive manner. However, the 2009 US Open champion, Juan
Martin Del Potro, couldn’t make it through the second round and succumbed to
the crafty game play of the former world number one, Lytton Hewitt, in an
intense five-setter.
The mighty Fed-Express has
been off to yet another brilliant start to the tournament, as the Swiss
Maestro, Roger Federer, reeled off the opening two matches in straight sets.
Federer master-classes Grega Zemlja and Carlos Berlock in the first and second
round respectively and now have to hunt down Adrian Mannarino of France to
reach the fourth round.
While the 9th seed Stanislas
Wawrinka and number 10 seed Milos Raonic win their round two brawls, the
Japanese tennis prodigy, Kei Nishikori, had to suffer an opening round setback
at the hands of the British qualifier, Dan Evans, in straight sets, 4-6, 4-6,
2-6. The talented youngster, Evans, went on to surprise the 52nd ranked Aussie
tennis star, Bernard Tomic, in the second round to cause back-to-back upsets in
the tournament.
The German veteran, Tommy
Haas, and the American giant, John Isner, also made it through to the third
round of the US Open Grand Slam this week. The number 12 seed Haas will play
against the 21st seed Russian, Mikhail Youzhny, for a spot in the fourth round.
Isner sidelined Italy's Filippo Volandri and the French veteran, Gael Monfils,
in the initial two rounds before he booked a date with 22nd seed crafty German,
Philip Kohlschreiber, in the third round.
14th seed Jerzy Janowicz,
the Spanish number three, Nicolas Almagro, and the 16th seed Italian, Fabio
Fognini, shared an equal fate and fell out of the men's singles draw in their
very opening matches. The former top-tenner, Janko Tipsarevic, registered a
cracking straight sets victory against the experienced Israeli contender, Dudi
Sela, to clear the second round with ease.
Moving further down the
seeds, the other two Spaniards, Tommy Robredo and Feliciano Lopez also managed
to pass the round two test of the tournament and will be playing for berths in
the round of 16 next week. Benoit Paire, Grigor Dimitrov, Fernando Verdasco,
Juan Monaco, Jurgen Melzer and Ernest Gulbis were among the seeded players who
lost in the first round of the US Open, while Sam Querrey lost his way in the
second round to finish off his voyage in a disappointing manner.
No comments:
Post a Comment