2008 was a good year for three players:  Andy Murray, who broke into the top four, Gilles Simon, who broke into the top ten, and Juan Martin del Potro, who did the same.

Indeed, all of them started their breakthrough in the summer.  Murray had a quarterfinal encounter with Nadal which he lost, then beat Djokovic twice during the US Open series, and then reached the finals of the US Open.  Juan Martin won four tournaments in a row upsetting Andy Roddick in Los Angeles, en route.  Simon also had a solid summer and beat Rafael Nadal in a Masters 1000 event after the US Open.

All three were in action today.  In 2008, Juan Martin del Potro beat Gilles Simon in the third round in five sets.  They met today with Simon as 12th seed and del Potro as the 18th seed.  del Potro’s power game that powered him up the rankings to a US Open title in 2009 is still a work in progress.  If he’s a tough out at the US Open today, he was scary in 2009.

Simon struggled for almost a year in a half starting in 2009, and was only getting back to good play around the US Open last year.  He recently won the clay event at Hamburg.  Simon is a classic counter-puncher.  He waits for you to make the error.  If he gets down in a game, he ups his level of aggression.   Simon wanted to play very long points and test del Potro’s fitness.  del Potro is known to struggle with heat and humidity, but he has fought through it before.  In 2009, Roddick thought he could beat del Potro in the DC heat, but Delpo managed to get the win.

del Potro took the first set, but Simon’s relentless retrieving won him sets 2 and 3.  In set 4, he was up a break, when del Potro played an aggressive game to get the break back.  Simon then went down 0-40.  Though a series of serve-volley points, aggressive ground play, and missed returns, Simon won the next five points and held.  The match went to a tiebreak where Simon got up right away and closed it 7-3.

John Isner took on fellow American Alex Bogomolov Jr.  Isner has been impressive lately.  He had had a patchy year up to Wimbledon with his rank slipping enough to be unseeded throughout the year.  But he decided, instead of attending his brother’s wedding, he would play Newport.  He could attend the wedding provided he didn’t reach the semifinals.  All he did was win the event.  He then reached the finals of Atlanta where he had chances to beat Fish.  He also won his hometown event at Winston-Salem.

Bogomolov is having his best year ever.  He had been teaching tennis, but his defeat of Murray in Miami appears to have envigorated him.  I felt Isner’s serve would be too big, and his game too much.  Isner has learned to get his ground game decently good.  He knows he needs to hit big because he doesn’t have the greatest mobility.  Key to the win was an 11-9 tiebreak in the first set.  Isner got a break in the second and third set to get a straight set win.

Andy Murray played Feliciano Lopez.  When they last met at Wimbledon, Lopez had won a tough five setter against Kubot in the previous round and that left him less than sharp against Murray who won in straight sets.  This time, Lopez didn’t have that excuse.  Lopez played four tight sets against Canadian up-and-comer, Victor Pospisil.  Lopez came out flat and lost the first set, 6-1.  He went for bigger serves and kept the second set somewhat close at 6-4, but fell a break behind right away in the third set, then another break.  Murray took the third set, 6-2.   Murray has to be relieved to win the match quickly given the five-setter in the previous round.  He was still unhappy with his game, but it was a clean win nonetheless.

Rafael Nadal, who beat David Nalbandian earlier on, cramped up during the press conference.  He recovered and said it was fine.  It’s happened to him before, just not during the interviews with the press.

Tomorrow, half the fourth round will be played.  Tsonga plays Fish.  Federer plays Monaco.  Djokovic plays Dolgopolov.  Tipsarevic plays Ferrero.