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Nadal Serves His Way Into U.S. Open Second Round; Top Woman Wozniacki Wins
Rafael Nadal didn’t lose a game on his serve in advancing at the U.S. Open, where lengthy matches and high temperatures highlighted the second day of play at the tennis season’s final major championship.
Nadal, who’s looking to complete the career Grand Slam with a U.S. Open title, was a 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 winner over Russia’s Teymuraz Gabashvili in the first round last night at the National Tennis Center in New York.
“I served well tonight, hopefully it continues like this,” Nadal, who won major titles at the French Open and Wimbledon this year, said after the match. “If I want to have a chance to win here, I need to serve well.”
The men’s No. 1 seed, Nadal reached the semifinals at the U.S. Open the past two years, the Spaniard’s best performance in seven appearances at the tournament.
Women’s top seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark also won in straight sets, beating American Chelsey Gullickson 6-1, 6-1 in a match that finished today at 12:52 a.m. New York time.
The start of yesterday’s night session was delayed after the three early matches at Arthur Ashe Stadium went the maximum number of sets.
Maria Sharapova, the 2006 champion, was a 4-6, 6-3, 6- 1 winner against Australia’s Jarmila Groth, while Novak Djokovic was pushed to five sets by Serbian countryman Viktor Troicki. Jelena Jankovic, the U.S. Open runner-up in 2008, needed 2 1/2 hours to beat Romania’s Simona Halep 6- 4, 4-6, 7-5.
Hot Courts
Players also had to endure on-court temperatures that reached as high as 110 degrees (43 Celsius) during the day session.
The temperature on the grounds of the tennis complex is projected to be 95 degrees today, the same as yesterday, according to the National Weather Service.
Andy Murray, the fourth seed from the U.K., is scheduled to play in the second match of the day at Arthur Ashe Stadium, while two-time champion and women’s No. 3 seed Venus Williams of the U.S. follows with a second-round match.
Defending women’s champion Kim Clijsters of Belgium and men’s No. 9 seed Andy Roddick of the U.S. play night matches.
John Isner, an American seeded 18th, is also scheduled to play his first-round match today. Isner won the longest match in tennis history during the opening round at Wimbledon, an 11-hour victory over Nicolas Mahut that stretched over three days.
Five-Set Matches
Eighth-seeded Fernando Verdasco, No. 16 Marcos Baghdatis and No. 19 Mardy Fish joined third-seeded Djokovic in playing five-set matches yesterday.
Spain’s Verdasco, a U.S. Open quarterfinalist last year, came back for a 1-6, 7-5, 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 win against Italy’s Fabio Fognini, while Fish, an American, got by Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic 6-0, 3-6, 4-6, 6-0, 6-1.
Arnaud Clement, an unseeded Frenchman, beat Cypriot Baghdatis 6-3, 2-6, 1-6, 6-4, 7-5 in a 3 1/2-hour match at Armstrong Stadium, where the on-court temperature was 110 degrees in the last set. Baghdatis is the highest men’s seed to be eliminated so far.
China’s Li Na is the highest seed in the women’s draw to have lost. The eighth seed was beaten in three sets by Ukraine’s Kateryna Bondarenko.
Jankovic, No. 4 in the women’s draw, survived a match point in the third set against Halep before advancing. Sharapova, seeded 14th, rallied from a set down against Groth to avoid matching her first-round exit at the Australian Open.
“I hung in there,” Sharapova said. “I knew after the first set it wasn’t over. Even though I wasn’t playing my best, I came out with a win. You’re giving yourself another match, another chance to get better.”
Straight-Set Wins
Seeded men’s players to lose yesterday included No. 24 Ernests Gulbis from Latvia, No. 28 Radek Stepanek from the Czech Republic and No. 30 Juan Monaco from Argentina.
David Ferrer, the 10th seed from Spain, won in straight sets, as did Spain’s No. 23 Feliciano Lopez and unseeded American James Blake. David Nalbandian, the Argentine 31st seed, was a five-set winner over South Africa’s Rik De Voest.
Seeded Russian women to advance to the second round were No. 7 Vera Zvonareva, No. 11 Svetlana Kuznetsova, No. 17 Nadia Petrova and No. 23 Maria Kirilenko.
Belgian 15th-seed Yanina Wickmayer won her first-round match, as did Aravane Rezai, the 18th seed from France who needed two tiebreakers to beat Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova. Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez, the 22nd seed from Spain, was pushed to three sets by Jamie Hampton of the U.S.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Matuszewski in New York at matuszewski@bloomberg.net Mason Levinson in Flushing, New York, at mlevinson@bloomberg.net
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