US Open – Day 5 (2R)

A couple of years ago Donald Young [84] was considered as a future American star. He had very tough transition from juniors to the professional tour and bogged down in mediocrity, perhaps until this season. In March this year he unexpectedly ousted in straight sets Andy Murray at Indian Wells, today has notched second big scalp overcoming Stanislas Wawrinka [14] in five sets on fresh court No. 17. The “wild card” Young saved luckily a set point in a first set tie-break with a tentative behavior at the net and came back from a *1:4 deficit in the 5th set to build a 6:0 lead in the final tie-break, which allowed him to stresslessly win the longest match of the day. I’m surprised that one of the most experienced 5-set active players like Wawrinka, was so extremely passive in the final stages of the match against an opponent who had played just one 5-set (losing) match before. “It was quite tough for me to put together two, three in a row. That’s a big thing. When you put matches together in a row against players of this calibre, it gives you confidence and you feel like you belong,” Young said, “It definitely helped. I just had to grow up a little bit. I think everybody’s light comes on at their own time. Hopefully mine is coming on now.”
There were two other dramatic 5-setters. On court No. 6, Igor Kunitsyn [62] won second five set match in a row, upsetting Jurgen Melzer. The Austrian led 5:4* in the final set tie-break but lost three straight points. On Louis Armstrong Stadium, Andy Murray survived a tough test against an in-form Robin Haase [41]. The Dutchman surprisingly won the 1st set tie-break despite a 0:3* down (broke Murray’s 8-tie-break winning streak) and showed fantastic tennis in the 2nd set breaking the former finalist three times in seven games! Very aggressive play caused some physical problems with the back of Haase, and the cutthroat Murray found another gear to get 13 straight games – he led 4:0 in the 5th set after 4 aces in a row! The match seemed over, but Haase somehow came back to the match and leveled at 4 games apiece! Murray broke immediately to ’15’ and finished the match 6-7, 2-6, 6-2, 6-0, 6-4 in 3 hours 20 minutes, in the following game on third match point (Haase had a break point on second serve – missed backhand return). Murray improves his great 5-set record to 12-5, coming back from a two-set-to-love deficit for the sixth time in career, which places him among the biggest specialists of these victories in the Open era #. In the next round he will play against Feliciano Lopez, who survived a 4-set battle with a newcomer Vasek Pospisil (the Canadian youngster had his chances in sets No. 3 & 4). Also a 4-set match with two winning tie-breaks notched the other big-serving left-hander – Gilles Muller. He began abysmally his first encounter with Ernests Gulbis, losing 3 of the first 6 service games, but saved a break point at 0:3 in the 2nd set, later on a set point in that set and the things turned around in his favor to give him a 3-6, 7-6, 6-4, 7-6 win (both players served 19 aces).

Longest match:
4 hours, 20 minutes: Donald Young d. Stanislas Wawrinka 7-6(7), 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 7-6(1)
Most aces:
21 – Andy Murray, defeated Robin Haase in five sets
5-set barometer:
15-10 Stanislas Wawrinka
13-12 Jurgen Melzer
12-5 Andy Murray
3-6 Robin Haase
3-2 Igor Kunitsyn
1-1 Donald Young
# The most comebacks from two sets down:
10 – Aaron Krickstein (1983-1995), Boris Becker (1987-1999)
9 – Todd Martin (1993-2004)
6 – Kevin Curren (1981-1991), Michael Chang (1988-1991), Wayne Ferreira (1997-2003), Andy Murray (2006-2011)
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2 Responses to US Open – Day 5 (2R)

  1. statsman says:

    Wayne Ferreira also have 6 comeback’s from two sets down

  2. Voo de Mar says:

    Indeed 🙂 Thx Statsman, corrected.

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