20130829blakeWas away at the US Open, so have barely had a chance to report about it.

Let’s quickly get to the top pros.

Rafael Nadal

Rafa played on the last match in the day session on Arthur Ashe.  His opponent was Ryan Harrison.  Harrison’s a hard worker with a huge serve, but he has liabilities when it comes to foot speed.  In general, he has to play like Isner, going for big forehands and ending points quickly to beat a guy like Rafa.

Realize that few players can run with Rafa, and so nearly everyone tries to attack Rafa, because if you don’t, he will get you on the run, and close out a point.  Rafa gives you opportunities to dominate a point because he plays defense so well.  However, Harrison is not as lethal as Isner on serve or forehand.

Rafa got out to a good start and broke early, but Harrison just couldn’t hit enough good shots, and made more errors.  A comfortable 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 win for Rafa who is still the favorite coming in.

Roger Federer

Federer was supposed to play the night match on Day 1.  However, shortly after Serena won her match, it began to rain, so the evening match was called, and Federer was scheduled in the daytime to meet Grega Zemlja of Slovakia.  Zemlja has had a form of mono which leaves him weak.  I was thinking that it must not be too contagious because they let him play anyway (as did Federer when he had mono).

In a way, this was a non-news event.  Despite all the travails that Federer had, losing early in Gstaad, and losing to a lowly ranked player in Hamburg (which he attributed to his ailing back), Federer played pretty well.  In other words, those bad matches don’t quite forsage of Federer’s doom yet.  He’s still a very solid player, but perhaps more number 4 than numbers 2 or 3.

Because Federer had a fairly routine match for him, no one paid much attention to it.  There weren’t sighs of relief because it’s still far from clear that he can beat the other top 3 players.  Right now, Fed is hoping for a miracle against Nadal (if both can reach the quarters) because that gives him a solid chance to reach the finals.

Novak Djokovic

Djokovic played a clean match against Ricardas Berankis.  Berankis is a bit like Hewitt.  He’s kinda diminutive (i.e., short), and tries to hit power shots, but is too erratic to bother a player of Djokovic’s caliber.

Perhaps the easiest win of the “big 4”, 6-1 6-2 6-2.

Andy Murray

Murray grumbled about his schedule.  Due to the late finish of Pospsil-Dutra Silva, the organizers didn’t feel right making Dutra Silva play with no days of rest against Rafa in the Wednesday night match.  Instead, they made Andy Murray play, who had been hoping for a Tuesday start, or at least, a Wednesday afternoon start.

With rain washing out about 4 hours of play in the day, there was some sense that Murray might not play his match on Wednesday at all.

When the rains cleared, organizers wanted the del Potro-Garcia Lopez match to finish, and for a time, it looked like Garcia Lopez might push the match into a fifth set.  However, del Potro managed to eke out this win.  Then, they had to clear the stadium to let in the night crowd since this was a day session.

Murray didn’t get on court until close to 10 PM, more than 2 1/2 hours after he was scheduled.  All things considered, he wasn’t delayed too far off from what his original time was, unlike, say del Potro who started his match at 1 PM.

Llodra is kind of a great matchup for Murray.  Murray returns early, loves to pass, and Llodra can’t really compete from the backcourt, nor does he try.  Llodra doesn’t even seem that interested in winning, instead preferring to put on a show, even in a loss.

Murray is starting to get more comfortable hitting shots down the line, after a year and a half with Lendl, and was ruthlessly efficient.  He won 62 64 63.

Others

del Potro struggled a bit with his win over Garcia Lopez who showed an uncanny ability to reach a lot of shots.  Grigor Dimitrov continued to disappoint with his loss to Sousa of Portugal in 5 sets.  Jerzy Janowicz faded quickly against unheralded Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina.  Ernests Gulbis lost to Haider-Maurer in 5 sets to complete the trifecta of disappointment.

Americans fared moderately well.  Denis Kudla, Jack Sock, Donald Young, Bradley Klahn, John Isner, Sam Querrey, Tim Smyczek, and Rajeev Ram all made it to the third round.  Ram, in particular, seemed to have his opponent wilt (Fognini) as did Donald Young, who only lost 2 games to Martin Klizan.  More than a scant number of players appear to have lost in speed, collecting the $23,000 paycheck, perhaps due to injuries (the money can make you play if you don’t want to).

One player that didn’t make it to the second round was James Blake who earlier announced his retirement at the US Open.  Blake actually played a player older than him (Ivo Karlovic) and with as dismal a 5-set record as him.  Although Blake took the first two sets, he lost a tiebreak in the third, got a break down in the fourth set and lost it, then lost the fifth set much like the third set (despite going down a break, then breaking back), with Karlovic running away with the tiebreak.

It wasn’t nearly the kind of exit Agassi made back in 2006, but with Blake having a family, and apparently hampered by some injury that affected his first serve speed, it was still touching to the crowd that stayed with him to the end.