U.S. Open - Second Round
As the tournament evolves, so are the surprises. We're already passed the second round and some players are heading home way too early, compared to their expectation.
One player I'm watching this year from the younger generation is Felix Auger Aliassime, because of the big promises that were made at the beginning of the year regarding his evolution. He got himself a new trainer, Toni Nadal, the uncle of Rafael Nadal, which is promising. So far he hasn't done much this year, his biggest achievement so far was the quarter finals at Wimbledon. The most shocking was his loss in the first round of the Olympics, to 190th ranked Australian Max Purcell. It must have been unbearable to say the least and if we consider the fact that he supposed to play against Andy Murray, who withdrew from the competition ... I have no words.
Two days ago he met Bernabe Zapata Miralles, who he was able to win against in three sets and qualified for the third round. They say he's a very talented player, but not strong mentally and that is why he's losing almost all the time. This is a huge problem as the more he evolves in a competition, the bigger the mental pressure. In order to defeat the best, you have to be better than them. I'm curious if he can fight his daemons and get over whatever is stopping him from winning. Otherwise he's never going to get any further.
Daniil Medvedev had no problem winning against Dominik Koepfer in just three sets, that looked more like a training session, which allowed him to save some energy for the next round.
The first shock was Casper Ruud, 8th seed losing to Boticvande Zandschulp, who I've never heard of. Casper Ruud had a very good evolution this year and he may not be among the best, but still, to lose to an unknown player is not like him. Too bad.
The second shock was Cristian Garín 16th seed, loseing to Henri Laaksonen, who I have never heard of either.
Andrey Rublev had a mixed match from difficulty point of view with Pedro Martínez. The first two sets were extremely tough, both ending in tie-breaks, one of which won by Rublev, the other by Martínez. Rublev is an experienced player, he is used to stress and pressure, which apparently can't be said about Martínez as he lost the next two sets to 6 - 1 both.
Alex de Minaur also had a bad day, because as 14th seed, he wasn't able to win against Taylor Fritz. I t looks like de Minaur has lost momentum as he hasn't achieved much this year in the major tournaments and the year is almost over. He needs to change something next year, if he wants better results.
Zachary Svajda had the misfortune to meet the Italian Jannik Sinner so early in the competition. It was a tough match, the second and the third ending in two tough tie-breaks, after which Zachary Svajda could not keep up with Sinner. I'm happy to see the Italian winning as he needed this. He had a few bad tournaments and now he needs to up the tempo if he wants to keep his place on the ATP ranking list. There are so many young and talented players, there's no time to lose here.
My favorite, the South African Lloyd Harris was able to dominate the match he played against the American Ernesto Escobedo. He needed only three sets to win and it wasn't difficult either to defeat Escobedo. I could not be happier, honestly. I'd like to see him finally listed as seed whatever seed he can be. I trust those times will come soon.
One humiliating match took place between the German Alexander Zverev, who's favorite to the title and Albert Ramos-Vinolas. 6-1, 6-0, 6-3 is usually not the result you see at the US Open. Poor Ramos could literally do nothing against the German and took the humiliating result as something to remind him to get better at his game. This is the big league and his performance was not at that level yesterday.
Stefanos Tsitsipas won against Adrian Mannarino in four sets, the last one to zero. He is continuing his lengthy bathroom breaks, he took a 8 minute break, this time leaving with a transparent bag for everyone to see what he is taking with him and got back without it. I don't know what he's after, but he's going to be disliked by everyone very soon. I hope it worth it.
Kevin Anderson vs Diego Schwartzman. I would have loved to watch this match, but it was way after midnight. The reason is that the difference in height between the two players was 43cm, in favor of the South African Kevin Anderson. Based on this tiny details one may say the taller player has the advantage here, but that's not what's happened. There are other factors determining the result and the Argentinian was able to defeat the giant Anderson. Schwartzman is younger and more fit as Anderson has been going through a lot of trouble, injuries, surgery and so on. I'm curious how much is he going to resist. He's a good player, but unfortunately towards the end of his career already.
Unfortunately Alexander Bublik had to go as yesterday Jack Sock was better than him. Five sets and two tie-breaks were not enough to defeat the American.
The third round is starting today. One match I'm looking forward is Alexei Popyrin vs Dan Evans. Id' like to see Evans get as far as possible in the tournament and break the bad cycle he got into.
The other promising match will be between Roberto Bautista Agut and Felix Auger Aliassime. I'd like to see Aliassime face the Spanish but it's going to be at 2 am, which is too late. I suppose Bautista Agut is going to win, but who knows.
But I would definitely wake up to see Lloyd Harris playing against Denis Shapovalov. This match can go either way and although Shapovalov has more chance, anything can happen. We'll see. Right now there's no starting time set yet.
