NEW YORK -- They broke out odd little dances after hitting big shots, swaying their hips and rocking their arms to music only in their heads.
They pushed their beleaguered bodies this way and that for 4 hours, 44 minutes on Friday, swatting balls from impossible angles and somehow rarely missing the mark.
Through repeated visits from trainers, through all manner of momentum shifts, No. 3-seeded Novak Djokovic and former top-10 player Radek Stepanek produced as entertaining and lengthy a U.S. Open match as there's been in quite some time.
Djokovic has emerged as a potential challenger to No. 1 Roger Federer and No. 2 Rafael Nadal, and on this day, he emerged victorious, if only barely, beating friend and sometime-doubles-partner Stepanek 6-7 (4), 7-6 (5), 5-7, 7-5, 7-6 (2).
When it ended, Stepanek stepped over the net, dropped his racket and trudged over to apply a bearhug so hearty the weary Djokovic nearly toppled over.
"As much as I was running and sliding and cramping, whatever, I still had a lot of fun," Djokovic said. "There are a couple of points that are really unforgettable."
And, oh, how many points there were -- 356 in all. The match lasted 63 games, the most at the U.S. Open since 1979. That year, John Lloyd and Paul McNamee played the same number to set the tournament record for most games in a singles match since tiebreaks were introduced in 1970.
"Long day," Djokovic said. "Long match."
Rafael Nadal advanced to the third round when Janko Tipsarevic stopped because of an injury while losing 6-2, 6-3, 3-2.
The 23-year-old Tipsarevic, who reached the fourth round at Wimbledon, had his right side taped by a trainer early in the third set.
"I am sorry for him," Nadal said in a courtside interview. "He's having a very good season."
Nadal's bothersome knees looked much better in the second round than the first, and he now meets Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who ended six-time major semifinalist Tim Henman's Grand Slam career by beating the Brit in four sets.
EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images
Novak Djokovic played 63 games in a 4-hour, 44-minute second-round match.
"I was a little bit better. I feel so much better today," said Nadal, who blasted in 28 winners against the Serb.
Former U.S. Open champ Marat Safin was eliminated. He's never rallied from a two-set deficit and the No. 25 Russian didn't do it this time, smacking his last shot right into the net in a 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 second-round loss to Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland.
"Everything I tried didn't work out. It was kind of a weird match," Safin said.
Safin was then reminded that Pete Sampras predicted the Russian would spend many years at No. 1 after winning the 2000 U.S. Open.
"Even the geniuses make mistakes," Safin said.
Safin has not reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal since he won the Australian Open in 2005, with a knee injury hindering his progress last year.
The 27-year-old cut a downcast figure when he faced the press after his defeat but said he was still hopeful that his best tennis was yet to come.
"Maybe, maybe it is," he said. "Maybe next year I will win a couple of Grand Slams, you never know. But just I'm sure the best moments still to come."
When he won the U.S. Open in 2000 at the age of 20, it seemed Safin was set to dominate the sport. But though he won in Melbourne in 2005 and also reached the final there in two other years, he claimed he is happy with what he has achieved so far.
"The thing is no matter how many times I explain to the people, they wonder why I didn't win five Grand Slams, 10 Grand Slams, why did I only win two and [get to] two finals," he said. "But once again, if the people look at me when I was 17 and I had no money and my mother gave me only $500 to go Roland Garros and the French Open and try to look for some money, to come from there from having nothing, to what I achieved right until now, well, it's a long way.
"I could have end up anywhere in Moscow or Russia doing God knows what. I'm sitting here and you're asking me pretty nice questions, so I think I did pretty well in my career," he said.
Wawrinka now meets 2005 semifinalist Robby Ginepri of the United States, who beat Teimuraz Gabashvili 6-2, 6-3, 6-1. Another American, Mardy Fish, led No. 8 Tommy Robredo 4-1 in the fifth set before dropping the last five games and the match 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, 6-7 (7), 6-4.
Fish's explanation?
"I froze," he said.
That one was played in Arthur Ashe Stadium and lasted 3½ hours, which seemed like nothing in comparison to what went on over at Louis Armstrong Stadium.
"I am totally exhausted. No energy. I smell my shoes -- they are so stinky," Djokovic said and then noted that he was fighting cramps "in both of the legs and an arm and back and head."
He got his upper legs massaged a few times. During one break, he plopped down on his stomach so a trainer could knead Djokovic's lower back. Stepanek, too, needed help at changeovers.
Yet both just kept going, remarkably combining for only 88 unforced errors despite the number of shots they hit.
Somehow, both found the strength to play to the crowd, waving their palms or cupping a hand to an ear to ask for louder cheering. Djokovic celebrated a couple big points by leaping high with a scissor-kick and an uppercut.
Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
Former U.S. Open champ Marat Safin has never rallied from a two-set deficit.
On one marvelous exchange, Djokovic's shot clipped the net and barely went over, but Stepanek raced to get the ball and slap it across his body. Djokovic got to that, forcing Stepanek to race back to the baseline for a defensive lob that Djokovic simply tapped in for a winner. Djokovic then let his racket fall so he could do a quick jig.
At 4-4 in the fifth set, Stepanek flubbed a shot and mocked himself -- and, perhaps, Djokovic -- with his own two-step.
Spectators regaled Djokovic and Stepanek with standing ovations during changeovers, before the fifth-set tiebreak and, of course, at the finish.
Stepanek might be best known for having recently been engaged to five-time major champion Martina Hingis -- and for having a tour spokesman announce the wedding was off.
The 20-year-old Djokovic, on the other hand, is quickly gaining popularity, thanks to his engaging personality and his YouTube-posted impersonations of other players.
Ah, yes, and his results. He reached the semifinals at the French Open and Wimbledon and beat then-No. 3 Andy Roddick, Nadal and Federer at Montreal, the first player in 13 years to defeat the top three men at a single tournament.
"I had some impressive results this year," Djokovic said. "Of course, the people expect me to do well."
He didn't disappoint Friday.
The U.S. Open is the only Grand Slam tournament that uses a tiebreak to end fifth sets, and Stepanek compared it to playing the lottery.
"You know," he lamented, "I didn't have the right ticket today."
Henman's Grand Slam tennis career is over, but he said he would be leaving the sport content that he had made the most of his potential.
Henman, a six-time major semifinalist who is retiring next month, lost 7-6 (2), 2-6, 7-5, 6-4.
"I've had a fantastic career," Henman said. "Playing in front of crowds like this make it so special to the players and that's something I'll miss."
He turns 33 next month and has struggled with knee and back problems in 2007, when he is 6-12. Henman announced before the U.S. Open that he would retire following this tournament and Britain's Davis Cup match in September.
"I've got one more tournament -- the Davis Cup, at Wimbledon, so a couple of nice wins there would be good," Henman told the crowd.
Though he admitted that he would have liked to have won Wimbledon, having reached the semifinals four times, Henman said he had few regrets about his career.
"When I reflect on my career, I think I maximized my potential," he said. "This is as good as I could have been."
Henman reached the semifinals at two of the other three Grand Slam events -- the French Open and U.S. Open, both in 2004 -- and reached a career-high ranking of fourth in 2002. He won 11 titles.
The back injury that had troubled him for the past three years flared up earlier this month when he arrived in the United States for the ATP event in Washington. Playing in pain, Henman said, was what convinced him to quit.
U.S. Open scores
Need results from the U.S. Open? Updates from every court and every match from USOpen.org: Scores
• Complete results
"I feel that with the level of tennis I've played and the things I've been able to achieve in tennis, I didn't want to just keep plugging away and get the limited rewards I was going to get," he said. "That was the time when I sat down with [coach] Paul [Annacone] and knew that I wanted to stop.
"It's not something I actually planned, that Davis Cup was going to be my last event, but given the circumstances of it being at Wimbledon, it seemed to fit extremely well with me," he said. "It's always been an honor and a privilege to play any event at the All England Club so I'm really excited about playing there."
The closest Henman came to reaching a Grand Slam final came at Wimbledon in 2001, when he was two points away from beating Goran Ivanisevic in the fourth-set tiebreak of their semifinal, having led by two sets to one when the match was interrupted by rain.
"Yeah, if I could change one match, it would be that one, but if am asked do I want to go back and play Wimbledon? Really the simple answer is no," he said. "I played there so much over the years and have had some fantastic memories, some of the best memories of my career.
"But I've always felt like when I've been competing I've had the chance of winning any tournament, including Wimbledon. It's obviously getting more and more difficult to win it and I am not going to just hang around for the next nine months, just to play Wimbledon for the sake of it," he said.
Henman, who has two young children with a third due next month, said the biggest thing he will miss is the competition but said he expects to be involved in tennis at some stage in the not-too-distant future.
"That's the biggest upside, playing in stadium courts like this one. That's the final piece in the puzzle," he said. "In the short term I'm looking forward to stepping away from it but I don't envisage not being involved in tennis in the future."
Tsonga won the 2003 U.S. Open junior title.
"He played too good for me," Henman said.
In other action, Philipp Kohlschreiber upset No. 11 Mikhail Youzhny 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3; No. 12 Ivan Ljubicic beat Andrei Pavel 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (6); No. 15 David Ferrer defeated Florent Serra 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-2; No. 17 Carlos Moya of Spain beat Igor Kunitsyn of Russia 6-4, 6-4, 7-5; No. 24 David Nalbandian beat Xavier Malisse 6-4, 6-4, 6-2; No. 20 Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina defeated Wayne Odesnik 6-3, 6-1, 7-5; No. 23 Juan Monaco defeated Dudi Sela 6-4, 6-0, 6-7 (1), 6-4; and Ernests Gulbis defeated Michael Berrer 7-6 (4), 6-2, 6-1.
Information from The Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.
Source: ESPN.com
No comments:
Post a Comment