Predictably, the standards of tennis in this opening round in New York have been extremely high. People forget that the non-household names who occupy the lower half of the Worlds Top 100 are also amazing players, the very cream at the top of both tours’ 1,000+ professionals.
In terms of shocks, we’ve had quite a few, which is perhaps to be expected, certainly a few stories on what was a fine opening round for the US contingent.
Isner and Basilasvilli’s exits on the men’s side, were eyebrow raisers, although their opponents in Johnson and Millman were tough. On the women’s side, Venus and sadly Clijsters too both lost, denying us a proper throwback to the previous era, for now at least.
The stories instead came from our plucky Brits, with both Cameron Norrie and Sir Andy completing mesmerising comebacks -again against tough competition, Norrie’s especially impressive against 9th seed Schwartzman.
Now, we look ahead to some tantalising 2nd round encounters.
Djokovic Vs Edmund
Simon Vs Fritz
Tiafoe Vs Millman
Pospisil Vs Raonic
Auger-Aliassime Vs Murray
Pliskova Vs Garcia
Osaka Vs Giorgi
Sabalenka Vs Azarenka
Lastly – as this very blog’s foundations are built on my love for them- I have to mention the dream line-up of Tim and Dani front and center of Amazon Prime’s great coverage. Tennis broadcasting is just another feather in Jim Bezos’ world domination cap and over the last couple of years they’ve netted the best pundits from BBC, Eurosport, ITV and TennisTV. The result is a team of experts who serve up a knowledge of the history of the game as well as an intimate take on the challenges and personalities of the players in the modern era.
All Things Tennis 