Well day 5 of the US Open was indeed a very eventful one which featured a couple of thrilling matches which I will go into more detail about in a bit.
But first a wee bit about Day 4, which saw on the ladies side unfortunately Elena Baltacha make an early exit as she faced off former US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova. Despite a strong start with a 3-0 lead against Svety, Bally started to succomb to Kuznetsova's impressive movement and accurate shot making, and after 1 hour and 22 minutes Elena fell in 6-4, 6-3. In retrospect Elena played quite well against Svetlana, but she was just unlucky that the Russian was on better form and was the better player. Also on other ladies matches, Serena Williams breezed past her opponent in 6-0, 6-1, which sees the previous world no.1 continue her commanding comeback, next up for Serena will be Victoria Azarenka, so that should be a really good one. Caroline Wozniacki also showed some great return to form as she crushed her opponent in 6-2, 6-0, which is really great to see her get back on her game and puts her in a strong position to do well in the latter stages.
In the men's tennis on day 4, Djokovic proved even further just why he is the No.1 men's player as he trounced his opponent Carlos Berlocq in 6-0, 6-0, 6-2. Djokovic spent no more than 77 minutes on court as he dismantled his opponent, he even admitted after he felt sorry for him as he tried to fight his way back into the match. Federer also had no troubles getting past Dudi Sela whom he swept past in 6-3, 6-3, 6-2. Although one of the first top seed upsets occured with Gael Monfils going out after an epic 5 set match against Juan Carlos Ferrero.
Onto Day 5, starting with the ladies, Vera Zvonareva made it through in straight sets as she took on Medina Garrigues, who put out Laura Robson in the previous round. And in a thrilling match, we saw the mighty Maria Sharapova fall to the Italian Flavia Pennetta (seeded No. 26) after a lenghty 3 set battle, which Flavia won in 6-3, 3-6, 6-4. This was a riveting match, and one which highlighted the great atmosphere of the US Open Arthur Ashe stadium, say what you want about the Americans, but when it comes to giving players an atmos and energy they are second to none. I was also pleased to see Flavia get through as she came out so strong early on and despite a real fightback from the Pova, she managed to make it through in the end. In the end Sharapova while she displayed the incredible fighting spirit that lead her to win her previous US Open title, also once again put in an incredibly erratic performance, as she served what must be a record breaking 12 double faults in the match and 60 unforced errors. With mistakes like that she's not likely to win another grand slam but we shall see. It also leaves the field that bit more open for the title to be taken, although Serena is still a hot favourite to win, but we will see how she does against Azarenka tomorrow.
So that brings us onto the other match of the day, which was an incredible and yet very frustrating one to watch, where Andy Murray took on Robin Haase, the very talented Dutch player who not only defeated Andy on their previous meeting, but also took Rafa to 5 sets last year in Wimbledon. And this time the match seemed to be of a similar nature and Andy himself was wary of his opponent, and rightly so as Haase come out with all guns blazing as he impressively held onto his serve in the first set, and broke Andy at one point who broke back, which saw the first go to a tiebreak which Haase won. In the second Andy worryingly went off the boil and lost it in 6-2, but in the third he regained his feet and took that set to keep himself in the match, and after easily taking the 4th set, and despite having a near 5-0 lead, he dropped his serve to let Haase back who found some inspiration to level the set until it was 4-4. But thankfully Andy managed to secure a break to make it 5-4 in the 5th set, and after a very tense final game which had the American crowd screaming for more, Andy finally won the match in 6-7, 2-6, 6-2, 6-0, 6-4.
This was quite a match, and it once again showed Andy's sheer determination and talent in turning a match around, as that's the sixth time he's won a match from two sets down in a grand slam. However it did also alarmingly raise just how poor his serve was, as he frequently dropped his serve and gave away too many free points to Haase. I think after losing the first set tiebreak that Andy really went off the boil, and it took him until the 3rd set to mentally come back into the match. And this leads us back to another concern and that's his mental strength in the face of adversity, as if that was Rafa he would have just gotten on the with match and put it behind him, and that's what Andy needs to do. Andy though to his credit was nothing but honest about his performance and he also said he needs to up his game when he faces his next opponent Feliciano Lopez or else he's going home. Another positive to take from the match was that we saw Andy in a rare moment where he broke into a big smile and jumped around with joy having won the match. It just shows that he has got that passion and that he wants to win and stay in the tournament, and it also shows he has got heart. In fact he did the same thing at the Davis Cup victory in Breaehead Arena. So it would be great to see some more of that from Muzza in future.
But in the meantime he really needs to work on his game and that serve of his as that was some of the worst playing I've seen from Andy in a while, and it makes him look far from convincing as a contender for the title. So we can hope Andy will try and sort himself out for Sunday when he plays Feliciano Lopez, whom he defeated previously Wimbledon so let's hope its a repeat performance. Another potential 4th round opponent for Andy should he get there, would be Donald Young who defeated him back in Indian Wells, so if Andy were to win that one, his revenge will be complete (as he already got his own back on his Miami nemesis Bogomolov in Cincinnati). And if Andy does make it to the quarter finals he could set up another very intruiging match with the former US Open champion Juan Martin Del Potro, which would be very exciting, but again he will need to be on form and put his 2nd round display well behind him.
Also briefly Rafa managed to ease his way through his 2nd round encounter with Nicholas Mahut, who played that incredible longest 5 setter match in history against John Isner last year at Wimbledon. This time Mahut proved no such threat against Rafa who took him apart in the first two sets before Mahut had to retire from an abdominal injury at 6-2, 6-2 6-0 ret. So the top 3 all look quite healthy, but that top 4 guy needs to sort a few things out.
So Day 6 promises to be quite interesting as Djokovic will take on possibly his first test of the tournament in Nikolai Davydenko and Federer will take on Marin Cilic. To be honest Roger and Novak are both in pretty good form so I don't think either of them will have too much trouble, so I predict straight sets win for them both, but we'll see.
And that's all fer now.
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