US Open Day 4

Matches of note today:

Federer v Phau
Klizan v Tsonga
Mathieu v Raonic

Serena v Martinez Sanchez
Kerber v Venus
Suarez Navarro v Aggy Radwanska

But no Djokovic

I'm never quite sure I understand the US Open scheduling. I guess because there's "super Saturday" that gives them an extra day, so they spread the first rounds more. Djokovic will be playing tomorrow.

Matthieu vs Raonic could be an interesting one, both fought back from deficits to win in 5 in the first round. Raonic is expected to be a danger to Murray but he'll have to massively improve on his first round showing for that.

Mathieu could beat Raonic I think.

And Murray would crush Raonic if they were to meet.

Nishikori v Smyczek and Wang v Simon are intriguing ones too.

If Ebden shows up, than Chardy v Ebden can be fun match.

http://www.usopen.org/en_US/scores/schedule/schedule10.html

Tsonga in a real fight now as he has just dropped the first set 6-4 to Klizan. Elsewhere Davydenko off to a good start with an early break against Mardy Fish.

I was just away to post that!!

Almagro v Petzschner on the way to a 5th set, "Deliciano" led by 2 sets but lost the 3rd and it's into a 4th.

Tsonga must be injured or something. 1st serve is quite slow by his standards, I clocked one at 100mph, middle of the box.

Tsonga down 0-40 and holds. Big game here already.

Tsonga on the road back? He breaks to lead 2-0 in the second set and Klizan's levels have dropped.

Klizan won't beat Tsonga. If it comes to it, Tsonga will beat Tsonga. Too many UE's and a wonky serve from him today. The more I see of him, the more I feel he's not as dangerous on a hard court as a grass court.

Klizan hits the ball strangely. There's not a huge amount of power but he hits it quite loopy.

And Andujar takes the 4th v Lopez! Mr Murray will be happy with that I guess after Lopez led by 2 sets to 0.

Watching Tsongs in 3rd set; this is possibly the lowest standard of professional tennis (being played in this set by JWT) I have ever watched. Seriously.

Tsonga really does have peaks and troughs in his matches. It really does cost him dearly and it is something he needs to work out. Won the second set comfortably but has imploded in the third set and is on the brink of losing it 6-1. He will need to go the distance to win this match. However, Klizan has to do what he hasn't done before - beat a top ten player. Can he? I am not sure.

So much of Tsonga's game is about his serve. It's just not working today and that is why he's struggling I think. Perhaps he's suffering from an injury or some off court drama, but his heart is not in this. He can definitely win this but he needs to engage in the match and get his head together. I don't think his heart's in it.

I would agree Juan but he has missed some real sitters with woeful shots when amidst rallies. Mentally very fragile at times.

I've noticed. That failed shot at the net summed his day up. It must have hit the advertising board at the back of the court it was that bad. It's not like Klizan is playing "lights-out tennis".

Double break for Klizan!!

Tsonga gets 1 break back with the help of 2 doubles from Klizan. How about a comeback?

You feel Klizan can only win this in four. Should he lose this set for 4-0 up I fear it will destroy him.

How does Tsonga have any fans left?

Shouldn't even be in the French Davis Cup team really.

And Matin Klizan wins in four sets to create the biggest upset to date in this year's US Open in the men's draw.

In a boxing match Tsonga would have his purse withheld for that. F*cking disgraceful, if I were watching I'd want my money back.

I liked him but he's now a complete d***head in my eyes.

He wasn't interested, was he BB? There was no conviction in the shots, he was just hitting them back at Klizan. Still, can't criticise Klizan for taking advantage of it. I'm very interested to know what is up with him.

bogbrush wrote:In a boxing match Tsonga would have his purse withheld for that. F*cking disgraceful, if I were watching I'd want my money back.

I liked him but he's now a complete d***head in my eyes.

He got a bit of booing from the crowd when he played a very lazy shot when he was lobbed hitting it tamely into the net. He just wasn't at the races today. Really pretty woeful.

Just to add though that Martin Klizan played very well and held himself together very well when he could have easily fallen apart. Very solid performance.

Here's a question:

Why are so many players coming back from 2 sets down to win?

Well the weather is very hot so maybe some players are suffering from that with dehydration setting in.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:How does Tsonga have any fans left?

Shouldn't even be in the French Davis Cup team really.

Agreed. But someone will be touting him up as a winner for Aus 13. I mean grinning Greg stated that he's the new Nadal at last years O2

No-one throws a match quite like Davydenko. I wish he would retire already.

Mathieu's giving Raonic a game. If the Frenchman wins, hard draw for Murray goes to relatively simple draw with the exception of Cilic + Nishikori but Murray won't fret too much over either.

Greg is the worst un-informed pr*ck of pundit

'No-one in the history of the game has made the top 10 for first time at 29' On Mardy Fish

Step forward Jurgen Melzer.



Total d*ck!

The Special Juan wrote:Here's a question:

Why are so many players coming back from 2 sets down to win?

they offered a bounty for the number of sets played unofficially.

The Special Juan wrote:Mathieu's giving Raonic a game. If the Frenchman wins, hard draw for Murray goes to relatively simple draw with the exception of Cilic + Nishikori but Murray won't fret too much over either.

Murray will beat Cilic as he always does when fit.

Nishikori, dismissed by some as some on these boards as some kind of hopeless imposter of the Top 20 is much improved in comparison to last year when they went (yes, when of course Murray beat a no-hoper ) but don't see Andy having an issue

Never mind Raonic though - for me we should be praying and hoping that the multi-skilled Nishikori, is the one to gatecrash the Top 4 club. He's got the temperament

Cilic making a meal of his match v Brands. He was 2 sets up and it's now 2-2 and on serve 5-4 Brands. Raonic gets the 1st set v Mathieu, hopefully that's another 5 setter for Murray's sake.

Serena on court now.

The Special Juan wrote:Mathieu's giving Raonic a game. If the Frenchman wins, hard draw for Murray goes to relatively simple draw with the exception of Cilic + Nishikori but Murray won't fret too much over either.

Pre-tournament I would have shared your Raonic concerns but dig deeper and his game is big serve based. Is that enough to beat Murray? I'd say not considering Murray has one of the best returns of serve in the game which should allow rallies to develop which Raonic will fall short in. I greatly doubt whether Raonic will even get that far even though he has just won the first set against Matthieu. A few months ago I felt Raonic would make massive steps forward but if you look closely his slam record is pretty dire for one ranked 15 in the world. In short I am now not as concerned about Raonic as I once was.

CaledonianCraig wrote:

The Special Juan wrote:Mathieu's giving Raonic a game. If the Frenchman wins, hard draw for Murray goes to relatively simple draw with the exception of Cilic + Nishikori but Murray won't fret too much over either.

Pre-tournament I would have shared your Raonic concerns but dig deeper and his game is big serve based. Is that enough to beat Murray? I'd say not considering Murray has one of the best returns of serve in the game which should allow rallies to develop which Raonic will fall short in. I greatly doubt whether Raonic will even get that far even though he has just won the first set against Matthieu. A few months ago I felt Raonic would make massive steps forward but if you look closely his slam record is pretty dire for one ranked 15 in the world. In short I am now not as concerned about Raonic as I once was.

Such a match is on Andy's raquet. However, he can get a bit frustrated when not breaking serve, i.e. some kind of mental blow out, would be dangerous against Raonic

Brands DF on BP. Cilic to serve for the match.

The matches against big servers are normally Murray's to lose. Ok, Raonic beat Murray on clay, but it was Murray on clay and if the conditions are reasonably slow Raonic may find it hard going.

Cilic serving for the match at 6-5.

Raonic breaks in second set. 3-2. Mahieu too erratic with his FH.

Cilic wins.

It would banbro but does Raonic have it in the tank to win a best of five match against Andy. I don't think so. He's already been on the brink of defeat at this US Open and if you look at his slam record he has yet to get past the 4th Round at a slam. If Murray gets that far and loses to Raonic then it is fair to say there would have been no way he would have beaten Roger in the semi if he can't beat the rather one-dimensional Raonic here.

Shvedova has 2/3 match points v Vinci at 5-4 in the decider, can't convert either and goes on to lose the match 7-5 in the 3rd.

The Special Juan wrote:Shvedova has 2/3 match points v Vinci at 5-4 in the decider, can't convert either and goes on to lose the match 7-5 in the 3rd.

Reminds me of Federer in his match against Djokovic in 2010/2011.

Raonic won't beat Murray, Murray's returning serve too well at the moment for that to happen. Can't believe Tsonga lost, isn't Klizan the bloke who lost the DC decider to Dan Evans not that long ago? Didn't exactly look the type of player who could beat Tsonga then...

Rusedski sometimes talks like he knows everything when he makes a lot of errors in his stats, and I feel like he belittles Annabels points when in my opinion she is more knowledgable than him

Nice to watch Blake for a while....making Granola look ordinary.
Oh hang on...he is ordinary. Just shows how 1 dimensional many of these top 30 guys are now compared to all court players like Blake.

Some of Blake's FHs are truly huge.

When does the Federer match start? It says 7pm local time (midnight UK time) but I don't see anything, in the score or live streams. Anyone have some idea what's going on....?

Has Roger trimmed his hair from after Cincy? He never plays well enough after having cut his hair