With temperatures soaring into the 100s on the blue griddle that is the US Open hard courts (with humidity to boot), yesterday's first round action was a physical and mental test for many. Sure it ain't Pennsylvania, but trust me, the weather ain't that different here in New York.
In a total surprise, the Djoker passed the test due to the mercy of shade in the 5th set and actually outlasted his fellow countrymen Viktor
I won't comment on his on-court interview as others already have (here and here).
Nails had the match under her control after the 1st set, but couldn't adjust to KBond cleaning up her game. According to Virginia Wade who was commenting the match, Nails just brain farted and couldn't back away brainless ball bashing. Even a hacker like me knows that the ball will fly in hot and humid conditions, and that you have to play patient tennis in those conditions. I hate you Nails; you were supposed to make the semis to take out Caro.
Bags shouldn't have played New Haven despite his promise to return them a favor.
Lady JaJa survived and didn't look all glittery against Breast Reduction Gal.
The Force is with young Gulbis but he is not a Jedi yet.
Benneteau evoked Sampras, splling his guts in the midst of the match but closed it out to beat the Sex.
If you're ever in New York on the Friday before the US Open officially begins, you really must make the final round of qualifying. For one, it's free. Second, it's amazing how great the players are who are competing to qualify for the main draw, and you get to see them compete up close and personal. Professional tennis is a cruel dog-eat-dog world and the difference between the fellow who makes it into the main draw of a slam, and those shut out is, well, pretty small. Lastly, all the top names are out on the practice court and you might get to see them prepare for free.
First, the first qualifying match I saw was Nicholas Mahut beat Uladzimir Ignatik to advance to the final round of qualifying (67 [4] 76 [5] 62). You heard that right: the fellow who lost the longest match in history (held in the 1st round of Wimbledon) had to schlep his ass to play the qualifying tournament. Why the French Tennis Federation chose to award their reciprocal wildcard to Guillaume Rufin (19 year old) who is ranked lower than Mahut baffles me? The best (and still lame) explanation is that they have some rule to award their reciprocal wildcard to their best junior player on the cusp of turning pro. Frankly, this smacks of a brainless failure to recognize Mahut's truly historic achievement.
At any rate, I don't know who Ignatik is, but it was pretty easy to figure out his game after a couple points: he's your plain vanilla baseline grinder who unleashes a few big serves to win free points. There's a truism in tennis: you're only as good as your second serve. Mahut's second serve compared to Ignatik is excellent. Mahut has an excellent kick serve that Ignatik had to return at shoulder height (despite standing several feet behind the baseline). Ignatik, on the other hand, was going for more on his second serve and hitting way too close for comfort to the lines (and double faulting a bit too much). That difference alone gave me the feeling that Mahut would be able to win the match.
In contrast, Mahut tries to be an all court player. While he has a pretty good one handed drive backhand, he will use slices to coax errors out of his opponent or run around it (often) to hit a strong forehand to take control of the point. You will see Mahut rush the net quite a bit. Overall, Mahut is a very entertaining player to watch simply for his shotmaking. On the other hand, I tweeted Mahut seems to be a tortured artiste: he will miss the most incredible shots when it's crystal clear he was in control of the point. Mahut really should have put away Ignatik a lot earlier but he had to gut it out.
Watching the top players practice was a highlight. Federer was playing a practice set with Monfils (he lost) on Louis Armstrong Stadium.
Both guys were serving well, and Gael was ... there to entertain the crowd.
And the usual Federer slice and dice was at work to frustrate Monfils. The Annacone-Luthi brain trust was there to coach the Greatest Shanker of All Time.
Here are video samples of their practice section.
Nando and Kohli were on the Grandstand later to jerk each other side to side.
Then Curls and Big Berd were punishing balls as hard as they can.
One interesting take away I had: some of the rec players (NTRP 4.5+) I've played with can hit the ball as hard as the pros, but the huge differences are: it's a lot harder for the pros to miss; they can place the ball where their opponent least likes it; and they have phenomenal movement (i.e. the ability to get to a difficiult ball and still do something good with it).
Gulby was up a break in the 3rd and could not convert his first 6 MPs against Federror with two of 'em being double faults until Federror finally broke back to even the match at 5-all. Then Gulby returned the favor to break back as Federror's 1st serve disappeared (46% in 3rd set). Finally, he served at the match at love to score an upset: 2-6 6-1 7-5. The journos now have an official new victim for their slump category: Fed, who hadn't lost before the QFs in 3 consecutive tourneys since 2002.
In his presser, Gulby admitted that his mental state was terrible on all those MPs:
I shit my pants a little bit, sorry for my language ... I couldn't put a serve in. I was shaking. I didn't know what to do. It was a terrible feeling.
Federer
Gulbis
Aces
2
8
DF
3
2
1st Serve %
56%
74%
1st Serve % Pts Won
35/53 (66%)
46/65 (71%)
2nd Serve % Pts Won
18/41 (44%)
11/24 (46%)
Unforced Errors
38
39
Winners
20
33
Break Points Won
3/6 (50%)
4/10 (40%)
Total Service Points Won
53/94 (56%)
57/89 (64%)
Total Points Won
83/183 (46%)
98/183 (54%)
It's fairly clear from the point total that Gulby just outplayed Fed and that Fed's 1st serve percentage was not good enough to earn him enough free points. Fed knew that his poor serve form lost the match.
Here's to hoping that Fed really wakes up, buckle down by winning ugly, and then begin to kick ass like he's supposed to. And just to squash any craziness from FedKADs, this cannot be a nefarious plot by Fed to pace himself through the clay court season. It's an all too common pattern for Fed to go downhill mid-match.
At least, Fed is still playing dubs.
In other news, Muzz got past Seppi at 2 and 4.
The Djoker baked a double breadstick for Chardy
In WTA news, Nails baked also two breadsticks for soccer chic, Errani.
Fun question: what is everyone but Fed doing in this blog post?
Something really must be in the desert air, as there was a string of upsets.
Sveta scattered errors all over the court in a loss to Carla Suarez Navarro
Cilic lost in straights getting bageled in the last set.
As expected Playstation outsteadied Gulby
And the Hit for Haiti got ugly as AA let his tongue get too loose in trying to josh Pete. See video here. Regardless of whether you think Pete was too thin-skinned or AA was too cheesy, it seems safe to say that Rafa and TMF present such a nice contrast of how two rivals can be friends.
