Zoo York, Zoo York: The last Slam of the year and who will stop Herr Federer
Well at this moment I can’t be bothered doing a proper write up for this event and maybe it’s the 3 day 1st round, the fact the World Athletic Champs are on at the moment. So I will do my best to provide something relevant to the US Open tennis.
Flushing Meadow well what a place, it’s hard to be too complimentary to an event that has Stupid Saturday otherwise known as Super Saturday, has the final set decided by tiebreakers, cause the local population don’t have the attention span to handle an advantage 5th set, yet can watch baseball and we all know the US Open is a slave to TV demands.
Onto the event itself well Federer got the Xmas section with all qualifers and the fact that big John Isner beat the Shark, will mean that for the first 3 rounds, he will face qualifier, qualifier or qualifier/Wildcard. This will just mean that he will have some good hitting before the matches that he needs to win will come around.
Just going through some of the 1st round results, well Isner winning was a surprise I thought Nieminen would have enough guile to get through, but the big man handled the occasion quite well and has a very winnable match against de Voest.
LaLo give Ferrero a straight set hiding and this is a strange result, though the last time they played in Stuttgart LaLo was playing quite well and the quick conditions helped his serve, but knowing when either of these two will play well is just a lucky guess and now LaLo plays big Andreev, hope Igor ends the LaLo adventure and I’d fancy his chances against Gasquet more so than LaLo.
Berdych had a solid win over Gicquel and will be hopeful of a strong showing here and that Verdasco defeats Simon, cause the annoying Simon is poison for Berdman’s game and also cause Simon is a flea and he would be fodder for Roddick.
Lucho and Luczak, well I am happy that one player that the blog likes made the 2nd round and in this one it was impossible for it not to happen. Lucho won 7-6 6-3 7-6 and saved set points and now plays Alamgro, it’s a match he can win for sure and he is better on hardcourt than Mucho and hope he has learnt something from the Båstad loss.
Other matches in this round:
- Chucho should beat Che and more than likely play Roddick and that should end his involvement in this event.
- Koubek plays big Querrey and this could either be a beatdown by Sam or Stef could play one of those matches where he decides to turn up and show what he can do, but he never does well at the US Open, so that isn’t likely.
- Big Mike Russell plays Blake and he has seemed to have pissed a lot of people off and got stiff draws, but hope he can make Blake hit a lot of balls and then Blake can start missing, cause Russ needs a break at this level.
- Seppi/Calleri: I want Seppi to win mainly cause he is a better match up for Hewitt than Calleri is and at least a player I like makes the 2nd round as well and then will play Hewitt.
- Santoro got Montanes and should get the W here and Pavel got a nice section of the draw and hope he takes advantage of this and beats that big serving buffoon Meffert.
Last of all the King Hernandez is out against “Baby Ali” Tsonga and this one won’t be easy, but anything can happen and also he is playing with Hartfield in the doubles, there are some women who would quite like that team.
Who will stop Federer? Injury or illness is the likely answer.
4 comments:
As for who will stop Federer the answer is no one.
Nadal seems to have had some injury problems after his win against Jones, it is foolish for him to play on, if he just had surgery.
Koubek winning against big Sam was a good surprise, he plays Llodra and has never won a set against him.
Russell have pissed someone off to get all seeds in his Grand Slam draws and Gonzalez has gone off the boil, but this is not a surprise considering he had a really huge 6 months and it had to stop somewhere.
Roddick got fortunate that Acasuso who was playing strongly in taking the first set had some problems with the knee and wasn't able to play freely and had to retire.
Blake and Santoro was good entertainment and Fabrice wearing that bright shirt and had solid crowd support, it seems the world has changed that James Blake wins a 5 set match.
Koubek wins again and Nadal is back on court today.
Great performance from Calleri against Hewitt, it was almost as good as the one in Malaga where he bitchslapped Ferrero badly when Ferrero was at his best on clay.
It's great to see him when he plays like that. He was in the groove and after losing the 1st set the winners were flowing like a flood.
Koubek murdered his match against Blake. He had the chance to take it in 3 sets, but lost in 4. Just a perfect illustration of not taking the opportunity when it was there to be taken.
Koubek lead 4-2 in the 1st set lost it 6-4, he was grinding quite well, but couldn't put it away and consolidate his service breaks and serving for the 3rd, then he plays a dumb game and lost the TB.
Berdman take out the Duck now.
Hi guys. I have afflicted with bad wrists lately so typing is a royal pain in the ass. Here are a few reports from the USO first round that I typed up back then. It unfortunately isn't much.
Thierry Ascione vs. Rik De Voest
This was my first time seeing Thierry in person and he was a bit heftier than I remember seeing him on TV and in pics. He has a pretty backhand and he even mixes it up nicely with a slice, but De Voest was just too good of a counter-puncher in this match. He can take the ball on the rise nicely and he was literally twice as quick as Ascione. Thierry retired with I believe back issues when he was a set and a break down.
Robert Kendrick vs. Igor Andreev
Even on a lightning fast hard court this is not a particularly good match up for Kendrick. His return is poor enough where Igor kicking it in hard gave him all kinds of problems and then all Igor would have to do is get one break a set. This is exactly what happened in each set other than the first set tiebreak that Igor won as well. Rob was not a happy camper during this match and he did not get a chance to ask me which male players numbers I got like he did in Atlanta. :P
Richard Gasquet vs. Sergio Roitman
Ree-chard looked absolutely horrendous in this match vs. the Serg, but he still managed to routine him. Apparently he had "a virus" when he retired in the next round saying no way he could beat Donald Young with his condition. He was hitting his groundies with zero weight and this would have been a good chance for Roitman to have an upset but he was shanking a lot of balls and did not look on his game.
Simone Bolleli vs. Julien Benneteau
It was a pleasure to finally see Simone in person and he was striking the ball very well. He can take his backhand on the rise extremely well, including on the return of serve. Julien doesn't serve HUGE, but he still returned it damn well. He can also crank his forehand up from most spots in the court and this really should have been straight sets with the way Simone was playing.
Nikolay Davydenko vs. Jesse Levine
These guys literally play the same game except Kolya is 10x better at it – as he should be. Jesse, a lefty, doesn't really serve big enough and his biggest weapon is his foot speed. Jesse had plenty of support at least but Nikolay seriously waxed him.
Hyung-Taik Lee vs. Dominik Hrbaty
This match included some serious heavy hitting. Neither guys are a fan of much topspin and I really thought fitness might ultimately win it for Hrbaty, but Lee showed in this match and many more that he is playing his best tennis ever right now. Hrbaty having been hampered by a bad elbow this entire season never really helped his cause either. Dominik was down 5-1 in the first set and somehow came back and won that set, but ultimately it did not matter.
Stefan Koubek vs. Sam Querrey
The way Koubek was playing had to be so annoying for Sam. Literally every shot Sam hit Stefan had an answer for. Stefan was running shots down, putting everything deep and in the corners, and on top of it all Sam couldn't serve well or put many winning groundies in play, but I think a lot of it had to do with the way Stefan was playing.
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