7-6(1), 4-6, 6-4: The battle of the young guns lived up to its billing, and more. Ryan Harrison came out swinging, attacking Milos Raonic‘s serve as if he hadn’t heard about the record-setting ace totals. Raonic proved as unflappable as ever, firing off 140 mph serves and huge forehands on break points.
In the end, Harrison came out on top. He played the Canadian as aggressively as anyone has this year, and it paid off. On the Raonic second serve, which guys like Fernando Verdasco couldn’t handle, Harrison charged in and crushed backhands from well inside the baseline. The American’s game isn’t fully developed, but his attitude surely is.
There was certainly no question that these two guys have earned the big stage. With the exception of some clunky forehands from Raonic, the level of play was extremely high, and especially for the Canadian, the level went up on the big points. It was hard not to think that we were watching two future top-10 players.
If there was only one revelation from the match, it was Harrison’s return game. He wasn’t just aggressive on the second serves, he whacked away at everything he could get a racquet on. He broke serve three times, and just as importantly, took the first set tiebreak 7-1. In other words, he did what just about every Raonic opponent in 2011 couldn’t do–a favorable comparison with a lot of good players.
Today, Harrison gets to play Roger Federer for a spot in the quarterfinals.
Breaking big serves: The bottom half of the draw has continued to proceed according to plan. Of the eight spots in the round of 16, the seeded player has six of them; the seventh went to Harrison, and the eighth is Richard Gasquet‘s, earned after a stellar performance upsetting Jurgen Melzer.
Gasquet will face Andy Roddick, who also put on a good show last night, breaking John Isner‘s serve three times and winning more than 80% of points on his own delivery. It’s a solid outing from Roddick, who has struggled with Isner in the past.
Two guys who didn’t struggle at all were Federer and Novak Djokovic. Djokovic started the day with a 6-0, 6-1 drubbing of Ernests Gulbis, and Federer repeated the act, crushing Juan Ignacio Chela 6-0, 6-2 in under an hour. Think these guys are looking ahead to the semifinal? At the least, both should advance easily to the quarters; Federer draws Harrison, while Djokovic plays Viktor Troicki.
Round of 16: Yesterday’s players don’t get a day off, as the entire round of 16 is scheduled for today. Here’s quick rundown of the matchups:
- Sam Querrey vs. Tommy Robredo: The surface seems to favor the American, but Querrey has hardly been untouchable lately.
- Troicki vs. Djokovic: Troicki has pushed Novak in the past, but I see this one coming out about 6-4, 6-4.
- Roddick vs. Gasquet: Potential to be the match of the day. Roddick has to be favored, but definite upset potential here.
- Rafael Nadal vs. Somdev Devvarman: Nadal’s third straight opponent out of qualifying. Devvarman is playing great tennis and might give Nadal a few things to think about in the first set.
- Federer vs. Harrison: Big day for the American, regardless of how badly Fed beats him.
- Phillip Kohlschreiber vs. Juan Martin del Potro: Kohl benefitted from Robin Soderling‘s injury; Delpo should have an easy time getting through this one.
- Tomas Berdych vs. Stanislas Wawrinka: Another one with a chance to be the match of the day. The Swiss has been playing well, so we could see an upset.
- Albert Montanes vs. Ivo Karlovic: Seriously, this is in the round of 16?
Doubles: If that isn’t enough, how about the Murray brothers against Alexandr Dolgopolov and Xavier Malisse? The Dog/Malisse pairing is hardly a familiar sight on the tour, but they took out the Bryan brothers yesterday, 10-7 in the champion’s tiebreak.
There’s an equally star-studded doubles match this afternoon, between Qureshi/Bopanna (who beat Paes/Bhupathi yesterday) and Djokovic/Troicki. Nadal/Lopez advanced to the semis yesterday, and it looks like Federer will be back on the doubles court tomorrow.
Doubles matches aren’t nearly as predictable as singles, especially with all of the top singles players in the draw. But how about this: Four of the eight seeded teams didn’t make it out of the first round. The other four seeded teams lost in the second round. So we have eight teams in the quarterfinals, none of which were seeded coming into the tournament. Crazy.
Enjoy the tennis!