US Open – Day 3 (1R)

In one of the most entertaining matches, at Louis Armstrong Stadium, John Isner [22] needed only one break of serve to battle past Marcos Baghdatis 7-6, 7-6, 2-6, 6-4. It was their third encounter in August, each time Isner became a winner. This time he had to work harder than in the previous meetings, in the 2nd set he saved three set points in the tie-break (5:6, 7:8, 9:10) – each of them with a second-serve winner on Baghdatis’ backhand! It was their second ’13-11′ tie-break won by Isner, the previous one occurred two years ago in Los Angeles, and had a weird progress – Isner saved only 1 s.p. at 10:11.
It was a good day for American players overall, besides Isner their matches won local pupils Andy Roddick, Ginepri, Bogomolov Jr., and 18-year-old, last year’s junior champion – Jack Sock [555], in his second Grand Slam appearance. Isner and Roddick have quite favorable draw, Fish has been playing tennis of his life, and it allows to suspect that at least one American player will advance to the quarter-finals (in the last two years none American player participated in the last eight, it had never happened in the Open era before). “It was okay… I’m still trying to find myself,” assessed Roddick after his 4-set victory over Russell, who now has eight first-round losses in his eight career appearances at the tournament, “I’m certainly still short on match play this year. I’ll keep fighting because it’s what I do. I don’t care if it’s ugly; I’ll try to get through“. The good American day was spoiled though, on Court No. 17, an experimental pair Karlovic / Moser ousted 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 the three-time US Open (2005, 08, 10) champions – the Bryan brothers; Dr. Ivo fired two consecutive aces in the end.
Andy Murray was struggling in the 1st set (lasted 70 minutes) with Somdev Devvarman, but prevailed in a tie-break (he’s won 8 straight tie-breaks) and took full control in the following two sets.  The unknown Brazilian Rogerio Dutra Da Silva [114] is a grantee of amazing luck, first he replaced Robin Soderling in the main draw (pulled out due to illness), then his first round opponent, Louk Sorensen [618] retired in the 4th set due to forearm injury (the match was played at Louis Armstrong, the biggest court Da Silva ever entered); the 27-year-old Da Silva next faces Bogomolov, so it’s for him a decent chance to continue a fairytale… 16 matches were played on Wednesday.

Longest match:
3 hours, 57 minutes:
Guillermo Garcia-Lopez d. Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(1), 1-6, 7-6(4)

Most aces:
23 – Steve Johnson, lost to Alex Bogomolov Jr. in five sets

5-set barometer:
6-4 Gilles Simon
5-3 Ricardo Mello
4-3 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez
2-3 Alex Bogomolov Jr.
1-2 Daniel Gimeno-Traver
0-1 Steve Johnson