US Open Day 4 - Santoro so close

Day 4 in New York and another busy one, with Andy Murray looking to emulate Henman’s triumph of yesterday amongst the early matches on court today.

So, straight over to Grandstand and Murray was taking on Jonas Bjorkman and the early signs were good for the Scot, but he failed to take advantage of his supremacy and lost the first set 5-7.

A painful fifth game of the second set seemed to last forever – there must have been ten deuces and definitely one code violation for Murray after swearing loudly over a missed forehand. Bjorkman held on eventually, but that game sucked the life out of him and allowed Murray back into it and he took the set and produced some great stuff in the third to take it 6-1.

The exertion and lack of matches seemed to take it toll on Murray though, as he wilted half way through the fourth, losing his serve and looking exhausted, but he broke back straight away and the set became a lottery, with Bjorkman eventually taking it by 6-4.

Murray was about to launch into a tirade at the umpire when Sky went to a well-timed (from their point of view) ad break. They’d probably had complaints from the earlier outburst and by the time we were back, the players were ready for the decider. At least Murray was and he found the energy to step up a gear and cruised through to the finish line, 6-1.

Most interesting encounter of the day matches promised to be Nikolay Davydenko v Nicolas Kiefer on Louis Armstrong, but this turned out to be a very dull, one-sided affair. On top of the poor performance from Kiefer, I had to suffer this from the US commentators: -

Commentator 1: “Right now Davydenko reminds me of a bus driver”.

Commentator 2: “Why’s that Greg?”

Commentator 1: “Well, he’s taking Kiefer to school right now”

Commentator 2: “Hmm”

On top of that nonsense, “Greg” went on to say how he thinks Davydenko has a good draw and a great chance in the tournament, before going on to mention that he would have to play James Blake (6-0 lifetime to Blake). Totally banal and I found myself in the disturbing position of shouting at the TV before switching courts. There wasn’t even a Kiefer rant to entertain me.

There was incident and controversy on ‘lucky’ Court 11 though, as Arnaud Clement fought off two match points in the third set breaker against Thomas Johansson, despite some very questionable line calls.

Clement, who changes his shirt at virtually every changeover, had a running argument with the umpire in French and with the crowd in English, as he was on the receiving end of a shocking call in the first game of the fourth set. He went into full-on Gallic shrug and arm flap mode.

It seemed to inspire the Frenchman though and the fourth set was full of high quality rallies and wonderful shot making – much of it from a pumped up Clement. German umpire, Roland Herfel was also on the receiving end of more moaning, this time from Johansson, as it went to another breaker, which Johansson took to claim the win.

Over on Grandstand, the Teutonic lunacy that I’d been seeking was in full swing, with the crowd right behind underdog, Philipp Petzschner, in the match with Haas. The underdog had his chances and had Haas resorting to his familiar rants, but alas it was to no avail and I had to put myself through the tedium of another Sharapova match.

Same dress, same result. The crowd surely must be looking for refunds about these night matches so far – total waste of time fare that should be played in the mornings, as opposed to at prime time, where excitement not tedium is required. There was the 20km ladies walk final live on Eurosport from the World Athletics and this seemed more appealing than watching Sharapova whilst waiting for The Magician v Blake.

Santoro made the wait worthwhile, when he bamboozled Blake with a few amazing shots from his repertoire of dinks and slices and levelled the match twice from a set down and forced a fifth set. Blake had never won a five-setter in nine attempts before tonight and he just squeezed past an exhausted Santoro, who clearly loved his night’s work and will be missed when he eventually hangs up his racquet. Now that was entertainment!