US Open Gallery: Men’s draw, Day 6
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The big story of Saturday in the men’s draw was the departure No.5 seed Andy Roddick at the hands of John Isner 76(3) 63 36 57 76 (5)
The match went down to the wire with the fifth set tiebreak, which suited 6’9” Isner to a tee. His history of winning tiebreaks is remarkable, having won 16 of his past 17. With Isner having raced to a two set lead, Roddick had played catch up to get the match level and two sets all. A-Rod had even saved a match point in the fourth set. But Isner stayed calm to win what he said was, “hands down, the biggest win of my career”
Isner also said “Maybe I was a little bit fortunate to win tonight. But I played well and I think I deserve it. When a match is that close, it hinges on a few points here and there. Maybe I could have closed it out in three sets. I had break points there. But that’s just the competitor that he is. He brought it back, took it to a fifth set. From there, it’s really anybody’s game”.
Roddick, who on paper won more points than Isner, said after the match that he thought he would have the edge in the fifth set “I did have the momentum after winning the fourth set. Any time somebody comes back from two sets, momentum is certainly on your side. I knew I was probably going to be in more service games than him. In the fifth set, I knew I wanted to finish it before it got to a tiebreaker and kind of became a shootout. It didn’t happen. He came up with the goods at the end.”
There were other rollercoaster matches on Saturday, but unlike the Isner v Roddick match up all were won by the higher seeded player but only two of the players eased through in straight sets. Fernando Verdasco fought it out for three and three quarter hours with Tommy Haas to win his five set match 36 75 76(8)16 64.
Tommy Robredo had to wait until the early hours of the New York morning to book his place in the fourth round. He finished his match against James Blake just before 1am, 76(2) 64 64. His reward is a match against Roger Federer.
The world No.1 dropped the first set in his match against Lleyton Hewitt but as with their previous thirteen meetings Federer came out on top 46 63 75 64.
“This match was close,” admitted Federer. “It could have gone either way. The way I came through, I was very happy, because I knew that being down a set against Lleyton is always going to be a difficult situation for me to be in. Make one more mistake and I’m in the fifth set maybe, or I go down completely. So I was relieved coming through.”
After dropping the first two sets Novak Djokovic defeated American qualifier and world No. 276 Jesse Witten 67(2) 63 76 (8) 16 64.
Nikolay Davydenko defeated another qualifier Swiss Marco Chiudinelli, ranked No. 161, in straight sets 64 75 75.
Robin Soderling defeated Sam Querrey 62 75 67(8)61 and Radek Stepanek took four sets to get past Phillip Kohlschreiber 46 62 63 63
It may have been a day where with one notable exception, the expected players progressed but it was a cracking day’s tennis with plenty of drama.
