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Seeds beat crushing heat to advance
Source: Agencies |
September 2, 2010, Thursday
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TOP-SEEDED Rafael Nadal got a stern test from 93rd-ranked Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia at the US Open and needed three minutes short of 3 hours to defeat him 7-6 (4), 7-6 (4), 6-3.
"I prefer to play 1 hour, 10 minutes. Win easier, no?" Nadal said after his match on Tuesday. "But no, one match is easy, especially in a big tournament. The pressure's there. You play against players that don't have much to lose, so they play aggressive. This is difficult to stop."
Nadal's match ended at 11:34pm on Tuesday, and left the top-seeded woman, Caroline Wozniacki, to finish out the night with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Chelsey Gullickson in the only meeting of the five on the feature court, spanning almost 14 hours, that didn't have much drama.
"The matches before me were so long. Nobody expected that," said Wozniacki, who traded off between watching Nadal, reading a magazine and running in the gym while she waited. "But a win is a win. It doesn't matter what time I get on. As long as I win, I'm happy."
By the time Nadal took to the court, the sun had long gone down, though it remained hot. Gabashvili also did plenty to keep things uncomfortable for this year's French Open and Wimbledon champion.
Needing a US Open title to complete his career Grand Slam, Nadal has long had a knack of making even the easy matches look hard. That's especially true on hard courts, where every violent stop, and every precise change of direction, comes with a vicious squeak that screams of the toll taken on the Spaniard's body. Against a game first-round foe, this one looked and sounded every bit that tough.
There were a total of seven break points through the first 32 games and neither player could convert. Nadal did what great players do - winning a few more key points in both the tiebreakers to take a two-set lead.
But not until Gabashvili netted a forehand on ad-out in the seventh game of the third set did Nadal find a crack in his opponent's service game, and the opening he needed to close it out in straight sets.
Rafa said he was happy with his own service game, in which he faced only one break point and topped out at 131mph.
While many experts are giving him as good a shot at break through at the US Open, he knows he needs to amp up his serve to do it. It has been a long-term project.
"All my life, I've worked a lot on my serve," he said. "Not (just) this summer, all my life."
"I prefer to play 1 hour, 10 minutes. Win easier, no?" Nadal said after his match on Tuesday. "But no, one match is easy, especially in a big tournament. The pressure's there. You play against players that don't have much to lose, so they play aggressive. This is difficult to stop."
Nadal's match ended at 11:34pm on Tuesday, and left the top-seeded woman, Caroline Wozniacki, to finish out the night with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Chelsey Gullickson in the only meeting of the five on the feature court, spanning almost 14 hours, that didn't have much drama.
"The matches before me were so long. Nobody expected that," said Wozniacki, who traded off between watching Nadal, reading a magazine and running in the gym while she waited. "But a win is a win. It doesn't matter what time I get on. As long as I win, I'm happy."
By the time Nadal took to the court, the sun had long gone down, though it remained hot. Gabashvili also did plenty to keep things uncomfortable for this year's French Open and Wimbledon champion.
Needing a US Open title to complete his career Grand Slam, Nadal has long had a knack of making even the easy matches look hard. That's especially true on hard courts, where every violent stop, and every precise change of direction, comes with a vicious squeak that screams of the toll taken on the Spaniard's body. Against a game first-round foe, this one looked and sounded every bit that tough.
There were a total of seven break points through the first 32 games and neither player could convert. Nadal did what great players do - winning a few more key points in both the tiebreakers to take a two-set lead.
But not until Gabashvili netted a forehand on ad-out in the seventh game of the third set did Nadal find a crack in his opponent's service game, and the opening he needed to close it out in straight sets.
Rafa said he was happy with his own service game, in which he faced only one break point and topped out at 131mph.
While many experts are giving him as good a shot at break through at the US Open, he knows he needs to amp up his serve to do it. It has been a long-term project.
"All my life, I've worked a lot on my serve," he said. "Not (just) this summer, all my life."
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