US Open Day 5 - Shall I Neel and ask her to Marray me? Or shall I just Peyer and give her the Haas Keys?

Order of play
http://www.usopen.org/en_US/scores/schedule/index.html?promo=topnav

Oooooh. Means an early Saturday for me!

Ha! Saturday is all yours, LK!

As we get fewer and fewer names to play with, I suspect we'll eventually be saying "no, you can have today's one, I insist"!

I know. I am scratching my head to think of one into late next week.

Fognini / Nadal might be interesting. In any other year this would be routine for Rafa but Foggy has two wins over him this year on clay and the experience to know what he's doing out there.

I still expect Rafa to win but this will be more informative of his standard.

Depends what Fognini shows up.

He's more complex than even Goran!

True, he needs to do well early or he'll just throw the towel in.

Just looked at a schedule, really looking forward to a full night's worth of sleep

Poor Rafito!

Excellent work on the thread title HM.

JuliusHMarx wrote:Excellent work on the thread title HM.

Thanks, JHM.

I must confess to a sliver of guilt at using Haas in exactly he same way as you used Haase yesterday though!

Its Venus Williams v Bencic, I have little to say.Cilic is 2 sets to one up I think

Cilic being taken to 5...

Cilic goes 3-0 up in the fifth

Love the fact the reigning champ was a set and 6-5 down and no one was interested. First time in about 10 years that will have been the case :-).

He has done well to fight out of it though. I get the feeling Cilic could reach the SF here.

Aye. It's 5-0 now. Cilic has had some good 5 setters this year in slams. Just getting through to get a chance

Anyway. Djokovic and seppi up. Might not be a blowout

Djokovic won't drop more than 8 games. Seppi can't hurt him.

4 4 and love?

Early break to seppi. Do we habd s maych perhaps?

The tennis is on and usually I would  be watching, but instead I am down the pub with a friend and we have gate crashed a wedding reception.

I just ordered a duvel and told a lady it's French!  

I was watching the Seppi / Djokovic match but I've broken away for some exciting paint drying.

Admittedly the commentary isn't as insightful as Greg & Barry.

Some nice hitting. At least it's somewhat competitive

Goffin retires

Very good win for Venus earlier against Bencic.

Shame for Goffin. Was it the heat?

Cramps. So heat induced I guess.

Serena loses the first set....

Williams behaviour is ridiculous. The shouting is all while the ball is alive too.

Gonna have tonnes of sleep tonight

Ferrer lost to Chardy. There are four relatively big hitters remaining in that quarter:

Tsonga, Cilic, Paire and Chardy. One of them will make the SF.

Rafa takes the first set 6:3. He is playing better today than what I saw of him in the Coric match.

Fognini was keeping the set respectably close until 4:4 but now made some cheap errors, incl a DF and got broken from 40-0. Rafa serving for a 2-set lead.

Rafa takes the second set and it should be easy from here. Fognini - while keeping the second set close - looked to be the second best player in that set.

Can't complain about Nadal's display in the match so far.

Early on his forehead seemed a bit shaky, but seems to have more or less settled. As per the last month or so, his backhand is more consistent and actually getting better depth than forehand. Serve has been ok, some cheap points, and not many double faults.

Fognini is playing like Fognini plays, he could really be a top ten player if he had the mental application. He's made some silly mistakes, especially on his backhand.

The American commentators who are on sky sports (not sure where the usual team is?) are completely abysmal.

They keep saying things that are blatantly obvious (think Andrew Castle), and combine that with making it sound really really dramatic.
Also under the false impression that the horror fest that Nadal served up in Rio was a better match than this one.

Yes, Nadal is playing quite respectable today.

Foggy takes his goose out of the oven. I thought it was cooked, but apparently not yet.....

Yeah, but I would still be surprised if this is not three straight sets.

summerblues wrote:Yeah, but I would still be surprised if this is not three straight sets.

I'd have Nadal perhaps as marginal favourite for the set, but he's thrown in horror service games at the business end of sets before this year.

Yeah, agreed. Rafa looks in reasonable nick and, although Foggy has had some flashy points, he's been nowhere near solid enough to mount a serious challenge.

Ouch! Your reverse jinx didn't have the desired effect then.

Great play from Foggy to win the set, Nadal wasn't finding the right depth on his groundstrokes.

Wow, Fognini does take the set.

Rafa will be kicking himself.  He was up a break and headed for a relatively easy straight sets win.  But his level dipped at the same time as Fognini's went up, and it was enough to make the difference.

Just as it is getting interesting, I have to sign off - waking up early tomorrow to go to the Flushing Meadows to watch some of the USO live

You guys keep rooting for Fognini on my behalf.

Fognini (we need a :badluck: emoticon).

Don't think I can tell in my sleep deprived state. Was that a Nadal collapse or did Foggy raise his level?

Righto. I'll try to get a chant going.

Yeah, these late-night commentators are pretty abject. Where's Barry when you need him?

The way Nadal is playing, he's not going to go far. He's spending way too much energy out there in such humid conditions, he's having all those lapses to lose serve while ahead and unable to capitalize on BP chances when Fogis gifting him so many!

Well at least he's no. 7 in the rankings now s Ferrer loses in R3, unless one of Gasquet, Isner or Anderson wins the whole thing.

Aut0Gr4ph wrote:Yeah, these late-night commentators are pretty abject. Where's Barry when you need him?

Anyone on the normal sky sports team are better than these two.

Fognini is such a player that he can make the outrageous look simple, but yet the simple look outrageously difficult.

He's probably got any match in his hands more than most players, even more so than predominantly aggressive players such as Berdych and Tsonga. He can generate pace, handle pace, move very well, and his anticipation is excellent.