US Open

[Sir David Gray]

Andy Murray started his US Open campaign last night in convincing fashion after seeing off Argentinian Sergio Roitman 6-3 6-4 6-0. The world number 107 has never won a Grand Slam match before and never looked like ending that run against Murray who will now play Frenchman Michael Llodra in round two.

The only other British player to make it through to the main draw in Flushing Meadows was Anne Keothavong. She beat American Alexa Glatch 6-2 6-2 to make it through to the 2nd round of the US Open for the first time in her career.

New world number one Rafael Nadal had to work hard to beat German Bjorn Phau 7-6 6-3 7-6.

Two seeds in the men's draw were knocked yesterday. 29th seed Juan Monaco was beaten by Kei Nishikori of Japan and 27th seed Feliciano Lopez was knocked out by Austrian Jurgen Melzer.

Three seeds in the women's draw were knocked as well. Israeli Shahar Peer lost to Na Li of China, Maria Kirilenko was beaten by 17 year old Tamira Paszek of Austria. However the biggest shock so far saw Ekaterina Makarova knock out fellow Russian and 10th seed, Anna Chakvetadze.

Elena Dementieva, Jelena Jankovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Lindsay Davenport all made it through to round two.

Today defending champion Roger Federer will begin the defence of his title and bid to win the US Open for the 5th year in a row when he takes on Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina.

[Houchy]

I think Tiger Woods will win it after a 19 hole playoff, after the 18 regulation playoff holes are tied, against Rocco Mediate.

Think he may need to take a bit time off after it though as he seems to be in a lot of pain.:greengrin:offski:

[Sir David Gray]

I think Tiger Woods will win it after a 19 hole playoff, after the 18 regulation playoff holes are tied, against Rocco Mediate.

Think he may need to take a bit time off after it though as he seems to be in a lot of pain.:greengrin:offski:

That's some foresight you have by the way, what's the Lottery numbers for Saturday? :wink:

[Sir David Gray]

Defending champion Roger Federer slaughtered Maximo Gonzalez 6-3 6-0 6-3 to reach the 2nd round of the US Open last night.

12th seed Richard Gasquet was knocked out by German Tommy Haas in a 5 set thriller. Gasquet won the opening set in a tie break but Haas eventually won 6-7 6-4 5-7 7-5 6-2.

Another 2 seeds were knocked out as well. Tomas Berdych was beaten by American Sam Querrey in straight sets and 20th seed Nicolas Kiefer was beaten by Ivo Minar from the Czech Republic.

No big shocks in the men's draw today, though. 5th seed Nikolay Davydenko comfortably beat Dudi Sela in straight sets.

In the women's draw yesterday, 11th seed Daniela Hantuchova was beaten by German Anna Lena Groenefeld 6-4 6-2. Number one seed Ana Ivanovic was given a real test by Vera Dushevina but came through in three sets. The Williams' sisters both won comfortably.

Today Brit Anne Keothavong reached the 3rd round of a Grand Slam for the first time in her career when she beat the 25th seed Francesca Schiavone 6-2 3-6 6-4.

Jelena Jankovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova both got through in their matches.

[Sir David Gray]

Andy Murray is through to round three after finally seeing off Frenchman Michael Llodra 6-4 1-6 7-5 7-6. He will play the Austrian Jurgen Melzer next.

Novak Djokovic went through last night beating Arnaud Clement 6-3 6-3 6-4.

Australian Open finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga came back from a set down to beat Spaniard Santiago Ventura 6-7 6-4 6-2 6-3.

Andy Roddick wasted little time in defeating veteran Fabrice Santoro 6-2 6-2 6-2.

James Blake is through after his opponent Steve Darcis retired in the 3rd set. Darcis won the first set 6-4 although Blake took the second 6-3. Blake was 1-0 up in the third set when Darcis called it a day.

24th seed Paul Henri Mathieu was beaten by American Mardy Fish 2-6 6-3 3-6 4-6.

Venus Williams continued her excellent form with a crushing defeat of Rossana De Los Rios, the American winning 6-0 6-3.

Another two women's seeds went out today. Agnes Szavay lost 7-5 2-6 3-6 to Tathiana Garbin and Nicole Vaidisova lost 5-7 3-6 to Severine Bremond.

[Sir David Gray]

Andy Murray made his fans sweat today as he had to repeat his heroics against Richard Gasquet at Wimbledon and come back from two sets down.

Jurgen Melzer won the first set in a tie-break and then won the second set 6-4 which made it look as if there would be no British interest at the US Open in the second week.

In fact in the third set, Melzer was two points from victory in the tie-break when Murray upped his game and finally got on the score board. The fourth set was a non-event with Murray dominating from start to finish and taking it 6-1 and subsequently into a deciding 5th set.

It went with serve until 3-3 when Murray finally found the breakthrough and broke Melzer to lead 4-3. Murray then held serve and then broke Melzer again to win the match 6-7 4-6 7-6 6-1 6-3.

Murray will now play the Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka in the last 16 after he also came back from two sets down to defeat Italian qualifier Flavio Cipolla.

In other matches, Rafael Nadal wasted no time in hammering Serbian Viktor Troicki 6-4 6-3 6-0. Sam Querrey beat the 14th seed Ivo Karlovic 7-6 7-6 6-2.

In the women's draw, Serena and Venus Williams both won their matches. However both Ana Ivanovic and Svetlana Kuznetsova (seeds 1 and 3) are both out, leaving Jelena Jankovic as the highest women's seed after she won 7-5 7-5 against Zheng Jie.

32nd seed Amelie Mauresmo is also through to the last 16.

[lyonhibs]

Why can't Andy Murray ever do it the easy way. He'll hopefully make the semi-finals before hitting the Wall that is Nadal (is it Nadal he's "due" to meet at that stage FH?)

Sadly I can see great similarities between Henman and Murray in that both are excellent tennis players, but are doomed to be constantly banging their heads off a brick wall when it comes to getting beyond the semi-final stage of Grand Slams due to the handful of absolutely top drawer players that will always be there or thereabouts to block their route to Grand Slam glory.

[Sir David Gray]

Why can't Andy Murray ever do it the easy way. He'll hopefully make the semi-finals before hitting the Wall that is Nadal (is it Nadal he's "due" to meet at that stage FH?)

Sadly I can see great similarities between Henman and Murray in that both are excellent tennis players, but are doomed to be constantly banging their heads off a brick wall when it comes to getting beyond the semi-final stage of Grand Slams due to the handful of absolutely top drawer players that will always be there or thereabouts to block their route to Grand Slam glory.

Yeah, if they both get that far, Murray will play Nadal in the semi finals.

He's already reached number 6 in the world. His next target is to try and overtake Davydenko in 5th which I think he is capable of doing very shortly. David Ferrer (number 4) lost yesterday in the 3rd round after reaching the semis last year and so he will also catch him up by quite a bit if his form continues.

That would then leave him trying to catch Novak Djokovic in 3rd spot which will obviously be a bit more difficult.

As for playing Nadal. I think that at this precise moment, it would be a step too far for Murray to play Nadal in the semi finals of a Grand Slam. He is winning just about every tournament he enters just now. However IMO I don't think that Nadal will be able to dominate the game over many years in the way that Federer has done purely because of the way Nadal plays. He is so intense in every single point and that must eventually affect you mentally as well as physically.

I strongly believe that Andy Murray has a Grand Slam in him and, more importantly, I think Andy Murray believes that, too.

Incidentally here is the draw for the 4th round of the men's draw.

I will put it in sequence so that winners of matches directly underneath each other will play in the next round.

TOP HALF

Nadal v Querrey
Fish v Monfils
Nishikori v Del Potro
Murray v Wawrinka

BOTTOM HALF

Roddick/Seppi v Nieminen/Gonzalez
Robredo/Tsonga v Cilic/Djokovic
Davydenko/Tursunov v Almagro/Muller
Verdasco/Andreev v Stepanek/Federer

Players in bold are who I think will win their 3rd round match and progress to the last 16.

I think if Murray gets past Wawrinka tomorrow which won't be an easy match, he should beat either Nishikori or Del Potro in the 1/4 finals.

It should be an interesting week ahead.

[Hank Schrader]

No tennis expert myself but I have a feeling that Wawrinka will beat Murray.

Whats Andys record like against this guy?

[Sir David Gray]

No tennis expert myself but I have a feeling that Wawrinka will beat Murray.

Whats Andys record like against this guy?

It's 3-3 in the head-to-head, although 4 of their 6 meetings have been this year and Murray is 3-1 up. Their last meeting was in the Canada Masters at the end of July and Murray won it in 3 sets.

This will be a hard match for Murray, Wawrinka is a good player but I just think that Murray will have too much for him and I think if it's a long match then Murray's fitness will see him through.

[Hank Schrader]

It's 3-3 in the head-to-head, although 4 of their 6 meetings have been this year and Murray is 3-1 up. Their last meeting was in the Canada Masters at the end of July and Murray won it in 3 sets.

This will be a hard match for Murray, Wawrinka is a good player but I just think that Murray will have too much for him and I think if it's a long match then Murray's fitness will see him through.

Good luck to him, too late for me to watch but I hope, as you say, his fitness proves to be the telling factor.

[Hibhibhooray]

No tennis expert myself but I have a feeling that Wawrinka will beat Murray.

Whats Andys record like against this guy?

Andy Murray has been stunning he is currently winning 6-1 6-3 and currently 3-2 up in the third set and Murrray has broke Wawrinka's serve

[Hibhibhooray]

Game set & match Murray 6-1 6-3 6-3 he was on fire if he plays like that in his next match he will book himself a place in the semi for sure:agree:

[Hank Schrader]

:duck:

He didn't half thump him :greengrin

More of the same against Del Potro please:agree:

[Sir David Gray]

Anyone else stay up and watch Murray last night? Decided to stay up after the excitement of the transfer window closing at midnight and i'm glad I did.

Andy Murray was absolutely sensational last night and totally blew Wawrinka off the court. His form in the 1st set in particular was brilliant. If he plays anywhere near that level for the rest of the tournament then he has a chance of winning it.

He now plays Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina in the 1/4 finals, who is in the form of his life at the moment. He is on a 23 match winning streak and is currently 17th in the world rankings.

They have played once before at this year's Rome Masters. Murray won it after Del Potro retired in the 3rd set with the score at one set all and Murray 1-0 up in the final set.

So perhaps not too much to take out of that, especially as it was played on clay as well.

Should be a good match but one I think Murray should win.

[Sir David Gray]

Well what a match last night!

Once again, Andy Murray does things the hard way. A match that should have been wrapped up fairly easily, ended up being just a few minutes shy of 4 hours long.

However, Murray should be congratulated for getting through it last night and he also looked encouragingly fresh after it which shows how fit he has become.

One thing that he does need to improve on, especially if he wants to get past Nadal in the semis, is his serve. He had a 1st serve % of just 57% last night and had 8 double faults. He won just 45% of points on his 2nd serve and his average serve speed was 106mph (1st serve) and 80mph (2nd serve).

If you compare these stats to that of Nadal in his match against Mardy Fish last night, you would see that Nadal had a 1st serve % of 73%, he had no double faults. He won 68% of points on his 2nd serve and his average serve speed was 110mph (1st serve) and 89mph (2nd serve).

If Murray is going to get past Nadal, which I think he has a chance of doing, he will need to get a lot closer to the Spaniard in the serving stats.

The final two men's 1/4 finals are tonight where Roger Federer takes on Gilles Muller of Luxembourg, who is the best Grand Slam of his career and home favourite Andy Roddick takes on 3rd seed Novak Djokovic.

In the battle of the sisters, Serena Williams got some revenge on Venus for beating her at the final of Wimbledon when she won 7-6 7-6 to reach the 1/2 finals. She will now take on Russian Dinara Safina after she hammered Flavia Pennetta of Italy.

[Sir David Gray]

What a couple of sets of tennis. Andy Murray has probably played the match of his life so far and is deservedly 2 sets to the good. He has blasted Rafa off the court up 'til now, which is far from easy.

The 1st set was sensational tennis and Murray took it 6-2. The 2nd set was just as good and Murray had lots of chances to break Nadal but couldn't do it. He eventually took it in a tie-break. He clearly lost his focus at the beginning of the 3rd set and Nadal immediately broke him (which were the 1st break points that Murray had faced in the entire match). Murray then managed to get it together again and held serve twice, before the rain arrived.

When played was suspended Murray led 6-2 7-6 2-3, with Nadal serving.

In the other semi final, Roger Federer played probably his best match in a year when he defeated Novak Djokovic in 4 sets to reach the final of the US Open for the 5th year in a row.

He took the first set 6-3, but Djokovic levelled by taking the 2nd set 7-5. Federer then went ahead by winning set three 7-5 and then won the match by winning the fourth set 6-2.

He will play the winner of Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray in tomorrow's final, although the final MAY be put back until Monday if Murray's match can't be completed tonight.

The women's final between Serena Williams and Jelena Jankovic (due to start at midnight) may not be played until tomorrow.

[Sir David Gray]

Play has been cancelled for today.

Murray v Nadal will recommence at 9pm our time tomorrow and the women's final will be at 2am on Monday.

The men's final will now be on Monday.

[Sir David Gray]

Absolutely fantastic by Andy Murray tonight. He made Scotland very proud with his performance against someone that has looked almost infallible in the past 3 of 4 months.

Make no mistake, tonight was a MASSIVE win, not just for Murray but for men's tennis as a whole.

Murray was going to 4th in the world regardless of what happened tonight but I think we now have a quartet of elite players. For the past 2 or 3 years, it was a duo in the shape of Federer and Nadal, then Djokovic arrived on the scene with his win at the Australian Open at the start of the year. I think Andy Murray can now be acknowledged alongside those players now.

Although guys like Davydenko and Ferrer have been around 4th and 5th spot for the past couple of years, you never quite got the impression that they would threaten the very top of the men's game, as good as they obviously are.

One more step to go and obviously Roger Federer stands in Murray's way tomorrow night. There's no doubt he will have a tough job trying to take Federer's crown but I wouldn't put it past him.

COME ON ANDY! :thumbsup:

[shamo9]

Is this a FalkirkHibee exclusive thread, or can I join?:wink:

[Mag7]

Anyone know if it's possible to watch the final online?

[Houchy]

Anyone know if it's possible to watch the final online?

Try www.usopen.org :agree:

[Mag7]

Try www.usopen.org :agree:


Cheers. Says that's only available in 'US and its territories' though.

[LancsHibs]

Good luck tonight Andy, sports performance of the year win or lose tonight:thumbsup:

[Sir David Gray]

Is this a FalkirkHibee exclusive thread, or can I join?:wink:

Please join in, I feel as if i'm talking to myself at times! :greengrin

[Sir David Gray]

Excellent performance from Roger Federer last night, absolutely brilliant.

Andy Murray played reasonably well but there was nothing he could have done to change the outcome of the match. Federer was back to his very best last night and if it had been against anyone else, I would have been pleased to see it.

Murray has nothing to feel disappointed about. To reach a Grand Slam final at just 21 years of age is an amazing achievement and also to beat Rafael Nadal in the manner he did was superb.

I liked his acceptance speech at the end and I liked what he said in the press conference afterwards. He has an excellent attitude and I think it's only a matter of time for when Murray eventually wins his first Grand Slam.

Federer was simply different class last night and it was no disgrace that Murray lost to him. I think even Nadal would have lost in straight sets last night.

Well done for the last 2 weeks, Andy. Scotland is proud of your efforts. :thumbsup: