Murray cruises, Venus out
Defending champion Andy Murray put on a US Open late night special, taking out his frustrations with the chaos-causing rain and event schedulers but two-time winner Venus Williams slipped to defeat.
Third-seeded Murray, who snapped Britain’s 76-year wait for a men’s Grand Slam champion when he triumphed in New York last year, needed just 98 minutes to get past 33-year-old Frenchman Michael Llodra, 6-2, 6-4, 6-3.
But his match only got underway at 9:55 pm — the third-latest start for a US Open night session — after a four-hour rain suspension earlier in the day.
That delay was compounded when 2009 champion Juan Martin del Potro and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez battled out a four-hour, 13-minute dogfight on the same Arthur Ashe Stadium, which the Argentine sixth seed won 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 7-6 (9/7).
“I think playing at that time for your first round is not ideal,” said Murray, who hit 34 winners against just five unforced errors to book a match with Argentina’s Leonardo Mayer for a place in the last 32.
“It’s not whether it’s me, it’s anyone. Just because I won last year, it’s nothing to do with that. It’s just more for the guys that have to play this evening, and you have guys that have two days off between matches.”
Del Potro, beaten by Djokovic in the longest Wimbledon semi-final of all time last month, goes on to face 2001 champion Lleyton Hewitt, who saw off Brian Baker 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Williams, the US Open champion in 2000 and 2001 and a seven-time Grand Slam singles title winner, went down in a three-hour, second-round clash to tenacious Chinese player Zheng Jie. Two-time major semi-finalist Zheng advanced to a third round clash against Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro by outlasting the American 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (7/5) in a victory she called “unbelievable.”
At three hours and two minutes, it was the joint fifth-longest women’s singles match in US Open history. “I didn’t realise the clock was at three hours until the end. I was like, Wow, this is a marathon,” said Williams.
Blake loses final tie
Former world number four James Blake’s career came to an emotional end after 14 years with a standing ovation after a first-round loss to Ivo Karlovic. “That ovation makes me realize everything I did, every bit of hard work was worth it,” Blake said.
“I don’t know when it’s going to hit me,” Blake said after the 79th-ranked Croatian beat him 6-7 (2/7), 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7/2), 7-6 (7/2).
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