U.S. Open - Day Three

It's officially the middle of the first week. The first round on the men's side is done (and two matches from the second round) as well as half of the second round on the women's side. As excited as I am, I'm beginning to feel worn down. Not while I'm at the tournament, but right now, as I'm getting ready for bed, I am beat. And this is after just three days! I'll try to rest up tonight, maybe sleep in a bit and get to the tennis center at 10:30 instead of 10 tomorrow morning. We'll see.

Anyway, looking at the laundry list of players to see that I posted yesterday, I did a surprisingly good job getting all that done. I watched the entirety of the Monfils-Chardy match, but not because it was great tennis. Mostly because it was short. Chardy was making too many errors - I see from the stat sheet that Gael had a +15 differential while Jeremy had -10. That's ugly. But there were a few occasions for stunning shot-making from Monfils, and I got to see him slide across the hardcourt to an amazing cross-court passing shot.

I watched a bit of Safin against Jurgen "Tuna" Melzer, and I'm glad I at least saw some, because it looks like I'll never have the chance to see Safin live again. Unless he unretires, a la Kim Clijsters. I don't think it's terribly likely, though. But if he takes some time to get his head together, that's really all that (I think) was keeping him from playing at the top level of the game lately, so he theoretically could return. I actually have him pegged to come back as a cyborg and win Wimbledon in 2015. When that happens, just remember - I called it: Robo-Safin!

I was surprised at how easily Kiefer dispatched Llodra, but it was a pretty well-played match, based on what I saw. Kiefer's next opponent is Rafael Nadal, who I'm also surprised at how easily he brushed aside Gasquet. I hope Richard can come back, because he has a beautiful game when he's on. He certainly wasn't, today.

After watching the end of the Kiefer match, I caught some of John Isner and Sam Querrey playing doubles, and those are some big serves. They won, handily, but I only watched about seven games, because it was on a tiny side court and the stands were just full to bursting.

I also saw Daniel Koellerer beat Machado, and I think that Daniel's new nickname should be crazycakes. It's not only his on-court gesticulating and yelling, but also the look in his eyes. That's a look that I have not seen in any other tennis player. But he's fun to watch, as a result.

The new flavor of Australian men's tennis, Carsten Ball, will be taking on Djokovic tomorrow, a match I hope to watch. This leaves last year's Aussie, Chris "Gooch" Guccione, kind of high and dry, losing to Pablo Cuevas in straight sets on a way outer court. He served at 46% today, so he was definitely off his game.

I didn't quite manage to curse Nicolas Almagro this - at last year's U.S. Open, I watched him lose from two sets to love up against Gilles Muller of Luxembourg, in a match with three tie-break sets. It was a great one, and it looked like he was about to do the same against Steve Darcis, winning the first two sets, dropping the third, and then losing a break lead in the fourth, but he pulled it out in a tie-break. He'll play Ginepri next round, after the American beat Andrei Pavel (a match I did not get a chance to see).

I did see a few games of, but did not get to watch too much of the tennis in, Gilles Simon and Jose Acasuso's matches, which they both won. Those are players who are not very exciting to watch against players that they are better than - their style is very workmanlike, constructing points and hitting high-percentage winners. They know when their game is just better. They're fun to watch against top players, because they can really raise their games - Simon did it a ton of times last summer, but his current year has not been as good, so far.

I saw the very end of Bellucci - Lu, which I hoped to see more of, but wasn't too upset about because it was a rout by Tomaz. That kid has no business in the qualifying draw. He'll get a regular entry to the 2010 Aussie Open, I'll bet you.

One of the last matches I watched was Ferrer against Alberto Martin. That guy is definitely a bulldog, because he was down 5-1 in the first set and reeled off the next six games. That's got to be discouraging, and not surprisingly, Martin went on to lose the match.

Tomorrow, I'm not entirely sure about what I'm going to do with the schedule. Doubles is starting to jump into full-swing, and the selection of matches on the outer courts is dwindling somewhat. There aren't a lot of matches that are blowing my mind... unless you look at Armstrong: Safina, Querrey, Kuznetsova, Djokovic? I think I'm just going to hang out there, all day. Sure, I'll miss the Bryans and the Williamses playing doubles on the grandstand, as well as some pretty good match-ups, scattered around the outer courts, but that is a line-up that I'm tempted to enjoy in a very sedentary fashion.