Despite a horrible performance, Roger Federer survives a second-round scare at the 2017 US Open.
NEW YORK, FLUSHING MEADOWS – After barely escaping an opening round defeat against Frances Tiafoe at the 2017 US Open, Roger Federer candidly admitted in his post-match press conference: “I couldn’t prepare the way I would have liked to. I have been nurturing my back instead of working on my game since Montreal. I knew that I would have been rusty and certainly not at my best, but I was hoping that I could have started the tournament a little better. I struggled a lot at the beginning of the match. Frances was dialed in, while I wasn’t moving well with my feet at times. My hand-eye coordination wasn’t working and I wasn’t properly calculating the distance with the ball. I was also very careful with my movement.”
Not too many people took Roger’s statement to the letter and probably nobody gave Misha Youzhny of Russia any chances to upset the Swiss legend in the second round. At 35 years of age, Youzhny is only one year younger than Roger and was twice a semifinalist at the US Open – in 2006 and 2010. One of Youzhny’s most memorable victories materialized when he totally wiped Rafa Nadal off the court. His last win against a top ten player was at Wimbledon in 2012 when he defeated Tipsarevic.
Many tennis aficionados also remember the Russian for an infamous incident during the 2008 Miami Open, when he hit his forehead in anger and started bleeding.
Before yesterday’s match, Federer had defeated Youzhny sixteen times in a row and when the Russian went up two sets to one against the worst Roger Federer of the year, many feared that the No. 101-ranked player could be on the verge of a monumental upset. After losing sixteen consecutive matches to Jimmy Connors, Vitas Gerulaitis finally managed to upset his countryman at the seventeenth attempt and made history in his post-match press conference with the statement: “Nobody can defeat Vitas Gerulaitis seventeen times in a row!”
On the other hand, Federer lost in the second round only once in 64 Slams – against Stakhovsky at Wimbledon a few years ago.
It was a sigh of relief for the tournament’s organizers when Federer emerged unscathed from the five-set battle against the Russian, despite an astonishing 68 unforced errors: 27 forehands, 35 backhands, 2 double faults and 4 volleys.
Roger will now face Feliciano Lopez in the third round. Lopez is another 35-year-old veteran whose game is based on serving-and-volleying and charging the net at every opportunity. He is also the type of player that can rise to the occasion if the opportunity of upsetting Roger presents itself.
This is the first time that Roger – a five-time US Open champion – opens a Grand Slam campaign with two consecutive five-set matches in the opening rounds.
The most interesting result of the day was Grigor Dimitrov’s loss to the young rising star Rublev. Dimitrov seemed to be in good form after winning Cincinnati and his defeat was extremely surprising.
Despite Sascha Zvever’s defeat, the emergence of Rublev, Shapovalov and Coric is announcing a new generation that could potentially take over the game in the future. A couple of young American players such as Tiafoe and Donaldson seem to have exciting potential as well.
In the women’s tournament, world No. 1 Karolina Pliskova had to survive a second-round scare against Nicole Gibbs of the United States. After losing the first set, the Czech was severely pushed in the third before prevailing 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. She will now be the overwhelming favorite in her third-round encounter against Shuai Zhang of China.
(Article translation provided by T&L Global – Translation & Language Solutions – www.t-lglobal.com )
