The Olympic upset tradition is going strong in Beijing, with Andy Murray, David Ferrer and Svetlana Kuznetsova losing their first round singles matches to to Yen-Hsun Lu (!), Janko Tipsarevic and Li Na, respectively. Oh well, pencil all three into the U.S. Open quarterfinals.
More after the jump…
It was a bad day for team U.S.A on the men’s side, with James Blake now the only American man left in the singles after Ginepri lost to Djokovic and Querrey to Andreev. Querrey and Blake lost to Andreev/Davydenko in the doubles. The Bryans have yet to play their first match. On the women’s side, Jill Craybas lost to Patty Schnyder while the Williams sisters got through in singles. Women’s doubles hasn’t started yet.
Rafa needed three sets to get through his first round against Potito Starace (he said the humidity was so bad that he changed his shirt every ten minutes) but he and partner Tommy Robredo went on to win easily over Swedish pair Jonas Bjorkman/Robin Soderling.
I watched Roger play his singles match against Tursunov via live streaming, which was an excellent experience and highly recommended as a tennis viewing format. Fed fan LeBron James (above) watched Roger’s match from the stands. Federer looked sharp in the straight sets victory – the online commentator rightly calling the performance “vintage.” Roger and Wawrinka went on to beat Bolelli/Seppi in straights.
Jelena Jankovic beat Cara Black routinely, a good way to start as the new world’s No. 1 (official this week.)
Here are some other interesting results:
Seppi beat Robredo.
Davydenko beat Gulbis easily (making Gulbis a big time contender in NYC?)
Wawrinka beat Dancevic in three.
Llodra beat Stepanek (hurray!)
Hewitt beat Bjorkman, setting up a second round with Nadal
Nicolas Massu and Fernando Gonzalez, are both alive in the singles (where they are defending gold and silver medalists) but lost in the doubles to Youzhny/Tursunov, killing any dreams that they’d repeat their Athens gold medal in doubles.
The Murray brothers beat the Canadian team of Niemeyer/Nestor in first round dubs.
Alize Cornet beat Nicole Vaidisova in three sets.
Sania Mirza retired during her match with Benesova.
Safina won her opening match.
Click here for the draws.
Click here for live streaming.
Click here for more photos from the ITF website.
Click here for more Olympic coverage from GoToTennis.
Rafa photo: Paul Zimmer
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