Posts tagged match
US Open, Day 8: Sharapova’s No Match
Sep 7th
Photo: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
The moment the U.S. Open women’s draw was announced, tennis fans began eagerly awaiting the imminent round-of-sixteen brawl between No. 1 seed Caroline Wozniacki and Maria Sharapova, a fierce competitor on the rebound. Both players were considered strong title candidates, so yesterday’s intense, early-round match-up felt like a battle to decide who would play the final this weekend and perhaps claim the trophy. In the end, Wozniacki emerged the victor, with her steady game and unbeatable defense, while Sharapova flamed out in straight sets and a wealth of unforced errors.
Both players stuck to their respective games yesterday, but it came down to a matter of execution; only Wozniacki did so successfully, by repeatedly hitting low-risk shots with an enormous margin of error. Her consistency, when coupled with her ability to return everything, seemed to drive Sharapova mad. No matter how definitive Sharapova’s groundstrokes seemed, the ball kept coming back, and the frustration of having to hit one more shot, again and again, pushed her to try for something more extraordinary. She often tried for too much. Not surprisingly, Sharapova hit 36 unforced errors while Wozniacki had only 10.
There was a brief period in the second set when it seemed Sharapova had figured out a way to break Wozniacki’s rhythm: Draw her into the net with well-timed drop shots. Wozniacki is a great mover along the baseline, but she’s surprisingly awkward coming forward, and at one point, she literally tripped over her own feet. But in the end, Sharapova’s coup was for naught, because her serve — formerly her greatest weapon — let her down. She double faulted nine times throughout the match, twice on break points. As a result, Sharapova gifted two games to Wozniacki, who graciously accepted and consolidated by holding serve herself.
Wozniacki is occasionally disparaged for her style of play, since it sometimes appears that she doesn’t win so much as force her opponent to lose. But her consistency yesterday against so intimidating an opponent has left many impressed. She may not have the most exciting game, but it gets the job done and leaves some of the strongest competitors looking feeble and without an answer.
After her complete razing of Sharapova, it seems more plausible that Wozniacki could run away with it all. If she does, she’ll leave Flushing with not only the U.S. Open trophy, but the No. 1 ranking. Wozniacki goes into her quarterfinal match against Dominika Cibulkova having only dropped ten games throughout the tournament, and the tennis community — including sitting duck Serena Williams — will certainly be watching carefully.
US Open Tennis 2010 Live Streaming Match Preview Grand Slams Week 2
Sep 6th
Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
We have completed the first week of the U.S. Open, and we have one of our first really big upsets – Stan “the Man” Wawrinka came out on fire and demolished the ball against Andy Murray, smacking his serves and blasting his forehand in addition to his backhand. It’s exactly the gameplan that has troubled Andy Murray in the past, as big-hitters like Berdych, Gonzalez, and Verdasco have blown him off the court. And it paid dividends – Wawrinka staged the biggest upset of the tournament, a fine tribute to his new coach Peter Lundgren.
Sam Querrey also pulled off what is on paper a pretty good upset, as he demolished the Spaniard Nicolas Almagro in straight sets. While everyone thought that he had earned a spot against Andy Murray, Wawrinka had other thoughts. It will make for a surprising couple of matches, as all of the top four seeds in that quarter of the draw have now fallen.
Today also had a few players who had put up amazing efforts finally breaking down, as Sergiy Stakhovsky and Michael Llodra retired with injury in the middle of their matches. It’s always disappointing when it happens, but it’s almost inevitable at this stage of the tournament. Some players just run out of gas getting this far.
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It doesn’t seem like the Spaniards are in any danger of running out of gas, though, as there are six Spanish men in the last 16, 4 of whom are all in one quarter of the draw. Lopez takes on Nadal while Ferrer gets Verdasco in the Spanish quarter, which guarantees at least one Spanish man in the semifinals. Verdasco, by the way, had a big win over the hot Argentine Nalbandian today, in pretty dominant fashion. It may have been that Nalby was a victim of overhype more than anything else – this was his first Grand Slam in almost two years, and people really considered him a dark horse? Under the circumstances, I’d say he had a fine showing.
Starting tomorrow, all of the men’s and women’s singles matches will be taking place on either Arthur Ashe or Louis Armstrong courts. We’re into the second week now, which means that the stakes are much higher for each and every match. It’s also interesting because Tennis Channel has the night matches while CBS gets them during the day, which means you get some slightly less interesting matches schedules at night.
For example, night session ticket holders for Arthur Ashe get Zvonareva and Petkovic. Full disclosure – I was in the stadium last year when Zvonareva completely melted down against Flavia Pennetta, so maybe the Russian doesn’t have the best memories of that court and that session. But hopefully she has a little bit more mental fortitude in reserve this year – or perhaps she won’t need it, as her unseeded German opponent may not be quite as much of a challenge.
And after that, the Tennis channel subscribers get to watch Roger Federer demolish poor Jurgen Melzer, who despite having the best year of his career at 29 has none of the weapons that one would need to get a win over Roger. It will be a beatdown, I have every confidence in the world.
The day matches are much more exciting (which is why you’ll be seeing them on CBS). It starts with Svetlana Kuznetsova against Cibulkova, one of the few unseeded players left in the draw. But after that, Mardy Fish gets Novak Djokovic. I can assure you that Mardy and his camp are hoping for a surprising heat wave to come along, because those are the conditions that Novak finds toughest. Fish has yet to win against Djoker in four tries, but he’s had a couple of really tight matches. It would still be a huge upset for Mardy to pull this off, but it’s not outside the realm of the possible.
And then, the best match of the tournament thus far – the one that everyone was looking forward to as soon as the draw came out. Maria Sharapova gets top seed Caroline Wozniacki, in a match that will likely determine the finalist from this side of the draw. Wozniacki has looked absolutely brilliant through her first three matches, dropping just three games. But she hasn’t really been facing opponents of the same caliber as Sharapova. This will be the real test about whether she’s a real contender for this title. And Sharapova wants to remind everyone that she’s one of the few former champions in this field. This will be a cracker of a match.
The matches on Armstrong are also good, though they probably don’t have quite the same star power – it starts with Monfils against Gasquet in an all-French meeting, which will feature a lot of shot-making. They’re 2-2 against each other up to this point. Then Wickmayer gets Kanepi go at it (tough to say that there’s going to be a lot of interest in that one, honestly) and then Robin Soderling gets Albert Montanes. It’s probably the biggest mis-match tomorrow. I don’t give Montanes much of a chance.
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Post-Match Chat With Andy Roddick
Sep 2nd
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The following is taken from Andy Roddick’s post-match press conference on Wednesday, Sept. 1 during the 2010 U.S Open. The ninth-seeded Roddick discusses his defeat at the hands of Serbian Janko Tipsarevic earlier in the night, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 under the lights at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
How surprised were you with his performance tonight? You played him at Wimbledon; played him twice before.
Yeah, the Wimbledon match wasn’t that level. I thought it was pretty bad tennis, to be honest, probably by both of us. He played great tonight. You know, on my little cheat sheet that Larry and I put together, I wanted to keep my unforced errors down, which I did. You know, he’s going to take big swings and pot shots at the ball. I wanted to make him do that from stretch positions, maybe on the move; I did that. I wanted to get a very high percentage of returns in play; I did that. I think it was close to 75 percent of returns in play. You know, I thought I hit the ball pretty well. I thought he played very high risk and executed for four sets. I kept telling myself, You know, this has to have an expiration date on it. Unfortunately, I needed another set for that.
You were very upset with the foot fault call.
Let’s be fair. I wasn’t upset with the call. I got called for two others which I wasn’t that upset about. I just expect my umpires to know the left foot from the right foot. If I ask, you know, what I’m doing, and she says, “Right foot,” and I point to my right foot and she says, “Yes, that one.” So then I let it marinate, and say you had time that’s impossible. So, if I’m questioning it and then you’re telling me this and you’re pretty adamant about it, that’s impossible. I’ve never once find me any tape where my right foot has ever landed in front of my left foot on the serve.
And just the stubbornness … let mine get in the way of them not being able to say, Okay, just change your mind. You know what, it was your it never would have stopped. I got called for two others after that, and I had was no issue with it. You know, in the moment, I was just stupefied.
How much did you let it get in the way?
It wasn’t in the way. I was down 5-2 in the third already. If anything, it kind of shifted the energy a little bit. You know, after that, I played okay actually. But, I don’t think it had zero impact on the match. It wasn’t like I was up, and after it happened it was a different result. I’m sure a lot is going to get written about it. But the actual impact on the match was probably close to zero.
It seemed like you did get a lot of energy from it, though, a certain edge that was missing early. Did you feel that way or not?
Well, at that point any change in energy was a good change in energy for me. You know, he was in a groove. He was seeing the ball big and he was taking risky cuts at the ball. They seemed to be dropping, the majority of ‘em. So, yeah, I don’t know. It wasn’t all bad.
When you went for the short change after that set, was that more to get out of there for a moment and have time to yourself or was that a necessary…
No, it was because my shorts were wet.
I know you’ve said once you decide to play you don’t like to point to excuses. Could you address the energy level in the first two sets? Was there a lingering medical reason it wasn’t where you’d like it to be?
Like I said, there’s nothing there. You know, we’re not talking about it if I win a match. I’m not going to talk about it because I lost it.
You’re a married man now. Do you feel you kind of curtail your anger when you have situations like this and maybe not go off into a real boil? Is it different now that you’re married in these situations where you feel you have to be more respectable on the court?
You thought I was respectable tonight?
Could have taken it to Johnny Mac levels.
Yeah, I could have. And the fact that I didn’t is because I’m married? That’s the thought process we’re going to go with? No, I think that’s no. We got to find another avenue for a story, I think.
The replay showed your left foot did touch the line.
That’s fine.
If she had just said left foot would it…
There would have been no discussion. There would have been zero discussion. There was two after that. It was the fact that I couldn’t get her to admit that it wasn’t the right foot just infuriated me beyond. The lack of common sense involved in that was unbelievable to me. I just have trouble when they stick to an argument that obviously isn’t right. It’s her job to call it. Like I said, there were two after that that they said front, and there’s no argument there. There’s zero argument there. I mean, we got to be able to maybe have a test, like point to your right foot, point to your left foot; okay, now call lines. I think that would be maybe standard.
Did she have an opportunity to correct herself, though?
Well, she was talking. She was talking.
She answered the one thing, right?
Yeah. Then I pointed again. She said, “No.” Then I said again, “Have we thought about this? Do we realize that it’s a physical impossibility?” She says, “No.” I think she was definitely responding, you know, when I was asking questions. None of the responses was, It was your left foot.
In hindsight, did you let it go too far?
In hindsight did I let it go too far? Yeah, probably. Probably. I think it was a very correctable mistake, and I probably let it get to me more than it should have. Yeah, sure.
Getting to the end of the fourth set, did you expect him to kind of fall out of the zone, or did you think you were going to get him in the breaker, he would get nervous, you have more experience, you could gut it out?
Yeah, I mean, that was the plan. There’s a lot of matches that have turned on a set before. But I don’t know if he missed a first serve in the breaker. If he did, it was one. I mean, he kept it up. You know, he played well. He deserved to win tonight. He went out and earned a win.
Was there anything out there you think you could have done differently or you have to say the guy played great?
Uhm, I’ll put it this way: there’s a lot of matches where I come off the court saying, I did not even come close to the game plan that we were trying to apply or exercise. Tonight I came off and I feel like I hit most of the points. Obviously, there’s always things you could do differently. But I’ve definitely been a lot further away from what I was trying to do on a tennis court before.
John and Patrick were both saying in the first couple sets you seemed very quiet, subdued, lack of energy. Do you agree with that, or do you think you came out with the fire you needed?
I don’t know. I did what I could, you know, out there. I battled the way I could.
Can you describe the conversation you had with your opponent at the end of the match. What did you tell him about how he had played?
I just said, “Too good.” You know, he’s a pretty good guy. I just said, “The last time you beat me in a Grand Slam second round you lost the next match, so don’t do that,” to which he head butted me, which was fun (smiling).
When he approached you at the net, he touched you with the forehead. How did you read this gesture?
It was fine. There was nothing there. I said something and he responded. There was nothing to it.
What was the feeling like when he was in that zone, when it seemed he kept going big and converting on every big try?
It’s a lot more frustrating when you’re the one messing up time after time a opposed to someone else coming up with the goods. If you put yourself in position, I mean, the guy came it was frustrating. At the same time, I was just trying to keep making him come up with it, you know, from all ends of the court just firing, pulling the trigger down the line flat, you know, time after time is not an easy thing to do, and he was able to do it.
Kudos to him. He played great. Obviously it’s not fun. I kept thinking there was going to be a Love 30. There was going to be something that was going to make him think a little bit. He stuck to it. He played really well.
You said the loss at Wimbledon was the result of bad play on both of your parts. Taking that into consideration going into the match, was the fact you had lost to him there not really a concern to you because it was identifiable as a bad match for you?
I was more concerned just because he’s dangerous. He’s got a high upside and he’s got a low low side. You know, he’s capable of playing like he did tonight, yet he’s under .500 for his career. He plays high risk. It’s high reward, but he can throw in some ordinary ones. I didn’t put too much stock in the Wimbledon match. I felt like if you would have showed me these numbers before the match I probably would have taken them not his side, my side.
Do you generally grab a stat sheet and look at it or only after a match like tonight?
No, they normally hand it to you. I wanted to see it tonight to see if I was going crazy or not.
Is there anything on there that surprised you?
I mean, you have a rough estimate. But 66 winners versus 30 errors for him, that’s pretty good. I felt like I was hitting the ball pretty firm, too. You know, he played well. I just wanted to kind of validate my own mind. At least, like I said, make sure I wasn’t playing crazy pills.
You love this slam. Every slam loss is an opportunity lost. Do you leave crushed? Could you sleep terrible tonight? Do you understand and just move on?
I’ll sleep a lot better than I did at Wimbledon, which basically I just, you know, felt like I hand-fed someone a win. Tonight, I felt like the guy earned it. That’s probably easier to deal with, when you make the guy earn it and he comes up with the goods. Still not fun obviously. I agree with pretty much everything you said in your question. But it’s not the worst that it’s been.
Given how well you played in the spring, you win Miami, you get the mono in Madrid in May, do you feel a little bit snake bitten?
It’s unfortunate. You know, I feel like when I’ve gotten some decent momentum, I’ve in the last year, I missed the last four months of last year and I’ve been dealing with this for a little bit. It’s been a short year as far as all things being perfect at one time. You know, hasn’t really been that way too often. It’s disappointing. But, again, I mentioned this before, but I always think that I have a pretty good sense of perspective. I mean, you know, mono is the worst thing that can happen to me. That’s not such a bad thing, comparable to most.
Are you still feeling a little lethargic?
I feel fine. I feel like I’m going to get some rest tomorrow.
Do you feel like you were aggressive in tonight’s match?
I mean, yeah. A little tough to be aggressive when a guy is hitting every ball as hard as he can. I felt like I was hitting the ball pretty firm. I think I wasn’t aggressive because I got married.
Isner ready to put epic Wimbledon match behind him
Sep 2nd
Isner ready to put epic Wimbledon match behind him
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NEW YORK (Reuters) – To most tennis fans, American John Isner will be forever remembered as the man who won the longest ever tennis match at Wimbledon this year.
But the 25-year-old, who reached the second round of the U.S. Open on Wednesday with a 6-4 6-3 6-4 win over Frederico Gil of Portugal, wants to make a new name for himself.
Isner’s first-round match with Frenchman Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon spanned three days and went down as the longest ever match at 11 hours 5 minutes and 183 grueling games.
The American did numerous television interviews when he returned to the United States after Wimbledon but said he is now determined to move on.
“That’s something I will always remember and it was truly a pleasure to be on the court with Nicolas that day for a historic match,” Isner said in a oncourt interview.
“But I want to put it behind me. I want to do well in the big tournaments. This is my favorite tournament in the world and this is the one I want to do well in.”
Isner almost did not make it to the U.S. Open after turning his right ankle in Cincinnati Masters two weeks ago.
But the 18th seed showed no signs of discomfort as he dispatched world number 87 Gil in straight sets.
Gil was looking for his first victory in a grand slam event but though he matched Isner early on, once the American had won the first set, the result never looked in doubt.
“(The ankle) felt great,” Isner said. “I took a four-to-six week injury and got ready in two weeks.”
Not having to play his first match until Wednesday “was huge” to his hopes, said Isner, who now plays Switzerland’s Marco Chiudinelli.
“I turned it two weeks ago so it gave me two weeks,” he said. “It was a lucky break.”
(Editing by Frank Pingue)
Young US tennis star Melanie Oudin struggles to match success of 2009 US Open
Aug 23rd
NEW HAVEN – Melanie Oudin doesn’t want it to be last year anymore. She doesn’t want to talk about last year anymore. She is an 18-year-old from Marietta, Ga., who was the blond-haired sensation of the 2009 U.S. Open. It was a wonderful feel-good story, the way the undersized Oudin beat Elena Dementieva and Maria Sharapova and went to the quarterfinals and had her boyfriend write “Believe” on her sneakers. The 2010 Open begins a week from Monday. Melanie Oudin would love to play it without having to relive every stroke she made last year at the Open, without the scrutiny that has followed her on tour through all of 2010.
There is as much chance of that happening as there is of Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee sharing a hug.
“Last year nobody had any expectations of me,” Oudin said from her hotel room last night. “Now everybody expects me to do well every time I play.” Recently she put it another way: “Almost every person in the United States expects me to win every single match I play, so, I mean, that’s kind of a little bit of pressure.”
This, of course, is a major reach, but forgive Melanie Oudin for her burdened feelings. She is the highest-ranking U.S. female who is not a Williams sister, the youngest player in the top 100, a 5-6, 130-pound kid who is trying to figure this all out. Sure, she went on late-night television with Conan O’Brien and got new endorsements and made money off her sudden fame, but can you blame her for feeling as though she has rocks in her racket bag, constantly having to live up to the best four rounds of tennis of her life?
“I’m not going to get down on myself because of what I thought I should’ve done after playing so well at last year’s U.S. Open,” she said. “I know I can get better, (but) overall I think I’m doing fine for someone in her first full year on the tour … playing in main draws against the best in the world.”
It has been a challenging year for Melanie Oudin. Her record is 17-19. She is ranked No. 44. She was as high as No. 31, in April, before she lost in the first round of five straight tournaments. Sunday she was supposed to play No. 22 Anastasia Pavyluchenkova – the Russian she beat in the opening round of last year’s Open – in the first round of the Pilot Pen tournament here, but the match got rained out, and then Pavyluchenkova withdrew with a hip injury.
Almost nothing in 2010 has gone the way Oudin thought it would. She thought she’d make it into the top 30 by the Open, thought the climb, the progress, might’ve been steadier. Not that she thought it would be easy just because she was now a Grand Slam quarterfinalist, but she underestimated how different life would be when she couldn’t sneak up on people anymore, “when people start knowing you and they start getting to know your game.”
Isner loses tiebreaker, match to Malisse
Aug 6th
WASHINGTON — John Isner’s experience with match-deciding tiebreakers wasn’t enough to save him from an upset loss Thursday night.
Unseeded Xavier Malisse of Belgium edged the Greensboro tennis player 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (5) in a rain-delayed match in the third round of the ATP’s Legg Mason Classic.
Isner, seeded fifth, served 18 aces to Malisse’s 11, but struggled all night with his return of serve. The Page alumnus, ranked 19th in the world, won only 18 percent of points on first-serve returns and 32 percent on second-serve returns.
Isner’s sometimes-doubles partner, Sam Querrey, also was an upset victim in the Legg Mason. But a quasi-tragic accident that might have ended his career at 21 has helped Querrey keep things in perspective.
The frightening incident occurred late last September, after a practice session at Bangkok’s stop on the ATP tour. Querrey was sitting on a glass table in the locker room to finish dressing when the table gave way under his 6-foot-6, 200-pound body.
A shard of glass sliced his right (racket) arm, barely missing a nerve and requiring emergency surgery that included four layers of stitches. After his loss Wednesday night, Querrey displayed the inside of his right arm, a 3-inch scar barely visible.
“They had to stitch a muscle back up,” he said, “and there’s a little square under my wrist that’s numb; I don’t have any feeling there. But that doesn’t affect my tennis at all.”
That he was quickly dispatched by 41st-ranked Serbian Janko Tipsarevic hardly puts a dent in his building momentum, Querrey insisted.
John Isner Gains Strength from Fans, Takes Tough Match
Jul 22nd
Johns Creek, Ga. — The last thing John Isner wanted in his first match since Wimbledon was a grueling three-set battle. But that’s exactly what he got from Gilles Muller in the second round of the Atlanta Tennis Championships — a two hour and 33 minute, three set match on Wednesday that Isner won, 4-6, 7-6 (8), 7-6 (9).
“Gilles is probably one of the last guys I want to play [in the] first match back — a big serving left-hander. He’s not going to give you much rhythm,” said Isner. “So that was a little bit working against me. I had to tell myself just to try to compete and whatever happens, happens.”
What happened was a solid win in a match where Isner never broke Muller once, and both players had their way in their service games.
Muller had 29 aces while Isner notched 33. There weren’t a large number of back-and-forth ground-stroke rallies, it was more power serves and punch shots to get the ball into play. And Muller held his own while serving. He kept the out wide on Isner quite a bit, and his serve — while not as powerful as Isner’s — was still moving as he hit 128 mph a few times.
“I tried to just hold my ground,” said Isner about his return of serve strategy. “He was obviously hitting his spots very well. Everyone hates trying to return that serve, the one out wide [from a left-hander]. It wasn’t that I was giving it to him, he was just hitting his spots.”
And Isner refused to over-think which way Mullers serve was going to go. Instead he would rather give the qualifier from Luxembourg a free point.
“I didn’t want to guess on his serve,” said Isner. “I’ve had opponents [do that] when they play me. When they start guessing it gives me a lot of confidence.”
Confidence was something that isner gained as the match went on. And the home crowd gave him strength. Isner went to college at the University of Georgia, about an hour away in Athens. He was a nationally-ranked star and the crowd on Wednesday was not only almost at capacity, but it was heavily swaying to Isner.
“The whole crowd was in my favor, which is to my advantage,” said Isner. “I wanted to use them to kind of pull me through. That was the only thing that got me through, and the crowd helped in that regard.”
The crowd cheering and the desire not to disappoint any of the fans who came to see him kept pushing Isner in the second set when he battled off six break points and a couple of match points.
“I played well when I needed to, and when I got down the crowd pumped me up,” said Isner. “I didn’t want to let them down, I didn’t want to lose my first match here. This is a very important match considering this is the first tournament of the summer.”
When Isner was down in crucial moments in the match, the crowd got loud. The cheering was well-timed and pushed Isner to dig deep when he needed a big point. At 7-6 in the third set tiebreaker, Isner, excited about a big point, even let out a fist pump and turned to the crowd and asked the to raise the volume. The crowd went nuts and Isner, two points later, rifled off his biggest serve of the night — a 138 mph serve out wide.
And that was a trend all evening. When Isner needed a point on his serve, he went out wide. Even though it was into Muller’s forehand, the power shot was Isner’s go-to move. And that move saved him from trouble on a number of occasions.
“This win was huge, maybe one of the biggest wins of the year,” said Isner. “I wanted to get some matches under my belt before I moved on to D.C., and the two masters Series events and the U.S. Open.”
Isner will live to fight another day, and his next opponent will be fellow American, Michael Russell, who took out the eight seed Benjamin Becker in the first round and Rainer Schuettler on Wednesday.
“He’s the exact opposite of me,” said Isner of the 5-foot-8-inch Russell. “I’m a foot taller.”
“He’s a grinder,” Isner also mentioned after his match, and you could almost hear Isner sighing as to say, ‘not again’.
Isner wins another long match
Jul 22nd
Second-seeded American John Isner needed a little more than 2 1/2 hours to beat Luxembourg qualifier Gilles Muller, 4-6, 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (9-7), in the second round Wednesday at the Atlanta Tennis Championships.
Isner, who is playing his first tournament since Wimbledon where he prevailed in an 11-hour, 5-minute match over Frenchman Nicolas Mahut in the first round, fired 33 more aces on Wednesday. He leads the ATP Tour with 705 aces this season.
After gaining the upperhand in the tiebreak, Isner finished off his opponent when Muller hit a return wide. Next up for Isner will be American Michael Russell, who defeated Germany’s Rainer Schuettler, 1-6, 6-2, 7-5.
Mardy Fish, the No. 6 seed, got past fellow American Robby Ginepri, 6-1, 7-5. Fish’s quarterfinal opponent will be American Taylor Dent, who upended fourth- seed Horacio Zeballos of Argentina, 4-6, 6-2, 6-0.
Top seed Andy Roddick, who received an opening-round bye, plays his second- round match against Rajeev Ram Thursday. Third seed Lleyton Hewitt battles Slovakia’s Lukas Lacko
This is the first year since 2001 that Atlanta has held an ATP World Tour tournament. That year the tournament was held in late April on clay and an 18- year-old Roddick defeated Belgium’s Xavier Malisse in the final. Malisse is seeded seventh this week and will play Ukraine’s Illya Marchenko on Thursday.
The other second-round match has South African Kevin Anderson playing American Donald Young.
The tournament winner will receive $91,800.
