US Open Day 3 - A Paire of Granollers made me feel Illhan start Goffin. I think I may have Busta Agut.

There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

And God saw that it was good (but was surprised to Cilic on Ashe and Rafa on Armstrong).

Why surprised? Cilic is the defending champion and by right should open his first match at AA but got LA instead. At least he gets AA this time so good for him and good on USO org.

Belovedluckyboy wrote:Why surprised?

Because USO is the most commercial of the four slams.

Ah damn it! you beat me to it!! I was hoping the US Open was mine and then someone would take the AO to a new level.

A top effort that man

Sorry, LK. More than happy to let you have the rest of the tournament. I think my pun reservoir may already be running low!

You can't back out now!

Just means I have to raise my game

illhan start goffin is pretty slick.

whichever one of you does it call me lazy but could you actually copy paste the order of matches for top 2-3 courts or provide a link

Ta dah!

Mardy and Lopez at a set all.

Tempted to quote the schedule post but that would just be childish.

Can someone delete the schedule post? Its way too long to make this thread easily readable!

Oh dear Mardy

Well heres the schedule link http://www.usopen.org/en_US/scores/schedule/index.html?promo=subnav

Rafa playing a midget.

Should I buy that Nadal kit ?

Dimitrov in the crap in his match.

The greens quite nice, bit bright but perfect for an 80's disco night

Good luck Andreas, show him what you are made of!

Haider-Maurer holding surprisingly well so far, but now the business end of the set is here; will he crumble or Novak step it up?

Sure enough, Nole breaks to love and takes the first set.

The foot faults are maurering the haider.

After a promising first round, it seems like Nadal regressed badly in round 2. Suddenly, Fognini looks a real threat in R3.

Nadal's kit seems to get bolder with every slam. I like it

kingraf wrote:Nadal's kit seems to get bolder with every slam. I like it

Maybe that's the problem?

Born Slippy wrote:After a promising first round, it seems like Nadal regressed badly in round 2. Suddenly, Fognini looks a real threat in R3.

I watched it in parts and thought it quite unimpressive. The guy's 5' 7", for Gods sake, and he wasn't struggling with the forehand.

Am I wrong in detecting a loss of foot speed? He seemed more easily manoeuvered around.

That Rafa is going to lose to Fognini (provided he even half shows up) and has very little chance of beating Djokovic.

Obviously he could suddenly find it again, but if Diego had a better serve then I don't think Rafa would have beaten him. Both seemed to be in trouble every service game.

Its more like hes hesitant in chasing after shots these days, perhaps not anticipating well too. The commies said that and I tend to agree.

I detect hes trying to be aggressive and trying to get used to it and so sometimes tends to overhit. Notice that hes standing close to the baseline to return serves esp those sec serves, sometimes even stepping inside the court. Well at least thats a good sign that he wants to be more aggressive. I think hes winning more of the shorter points than the rallies so far this USO. Hes making more errors but at the same time hitting more winners too, thats to be expected when he's playing more aggressively and going for his shots. He still lacks precision on his shots, may take some time to get that.

Fog is a good test for him and he really needs to up his level against Fog. Rafa's problem now is the mid match dip in his level; hes unable to sustain a consistent high level throughout a match the way he used to do in the past. I guess hes now at the stage where Fed was post peak and the dips in level are to be expected.

This guy, he was hitting very hard and flat and its players like that who give Rafa the most problems. Fog is also playing this way but I think Rafa knows what to expect from Fog.

I notice that Rafa isnt thinking clearly out there these days, he keeps attacking his opponents BHs even when its obvious that his opponents'BHs are on fire. It happened in this match, it happened too in that Lopez match at Cincy. Its like hes unwilling to get out of his own comfort zone to make his opponent uncomfortable. He still has plenty of improvement to do if he wants to get back to top five.

I see Dimitrov lost in R2 or before for the 15th time in 21 slams. Thought he would struggle to back up last year - never seen anything about him which suggested anything above lower top 10 potential. I am sure he will get back in the top 10 again but hopefully the ridiculous hype has now ended for good.

There were still the odd flashes of brilliance from Rafa, nothing like as many as we are used to seeing though. He is obviously suffering with confidence too...he has been the best 'big point' player I have ever seen, used to always think he would win the big points (and he normally did) but don't really get that feeling now. Doesn't play them in the same way.

Dimitrov is too talented not to get back up to top ten. I wonder if he may have a Gasquet-esque career.