The start of the evening session at 6.30 pm, a typical anomaly at the Montreal’s Rogers Cup, should guarantee a start in broad daylight, but on this inaugural day of the Canadian Open a thick coat of clouds made the environment decidedly more… evening-like@. Thirty minutes before the scheduled start, a few drops of rain threatened the program, but the ball-kids armed with towels and the Gods of Weather allowed the first match to start on time, even if most of the VIP guests were still sipping Cabernet Sauvignon at the Welcome Cocktail hosted by Tennis Canada at The “Terrasse Sur Le Toit” restaurant, right where the National Tennis Center has built its indoor har-tru courts.
In the “battle of giants” (both players are over 2 metres tall), Isner and Del Potro started their match exactly how it was expected: thundering strokes, short but good-quality rallies by two hard-hitters who are also capable to treat the ball with finesse. Certainly more Del Potro than Isner, but “Long John” is very well aware that he needs to press the Argentinian in his left corner, the one of his backhand damaged by two wrist surgeries, just to surprise him with blistering down-the-line backhands. However Juan Martin, who a few hours earlier had trained exclusively to hit his forehand, was much more effective on his return, and clinched the decisive break in the first set on the eleventh game with two winning shots right off Isner’s serve and benefiting from a double fault on 15-40.
Rain interrupted play for 31 minutes right before the Argentinian could serve out the first set, but after the break the 7-5 was perfected without trouble.
In the second set, Del Potro started taking control of the rallies, almost abandoning his improved slice backhand and relying almost exclusively on his two-handed backhand. Isner was becoming more and more nervous as he saw his side of the court getting bigger and bigger and vulnerable to Del Potro’s passing shots. The American’s serve bailed him out at 4-4 when he erased two break points, but at the fifth opportunity of the set, at 5-5, a netted backhand sealed Isner’s fate and sent him packing for Cincinnati.
Earlier in the day Nick Kyrgios returned to the tennis scene after his retirement at the Citi Open in Washington disposing with surprising ease of Viktor Troicki of Serbia. A decisive 6-1, 6-2 victory in 52 minutes let the young Aussie free to express his true self with the kids invited on court for some sponsor prizes and throwing freebies into the stands. “It was ok today” Kyrgios said later in the press room, after sitting down behind the microphoned table with huge sigh “I am obviously struggling at the moment, some days I wake up and I want to play tennis, some days I don’t”. A few hours later he humbly (provided that word can ever be associated with Kyrgios) provided his services to his friend Grigor Dimitrov hitting as a sparring partner for him. “I’m your boy, tell me what you want me to do”. After some hard baseline hitting, he went on to test Dimitrov’s return, alternating high-bouncing kicks and flat thunderbolts down the “T” at Grigor’s will. A pleasure to watch.
