Nadal wins under closed roof, Monfils and Tsonga also advance at U.S. Open

Rafael Nadal continued his unscathed trek through the U.S. Open when he scored a 6-0, 7-5, 6-1 second-round victory over Andreas Seppi on Wednesday night. Nadal, who opened with a straight-set defeat of Denis Istomin, needed two hours and 17 minutes to extend his winning streaks at Seppi’s expense to six straight matches and 13 consecutive sets.

Aside from a brief second-set wobble by Nadal, the match’s only real drama came when rain forced the new Arthur Ashe Stadium roof to close for the first time ever at 3-3 in the second set. According to a USTA statement, play was suspended at 10:38 p.m. and resumed at 10:46 p.m. The total suspension lasted seven minutes and 22 seconds, during which the roof closed in five minutes and 35 seconds.

“I know (it is) gonna be part of the history of this amazing event,” Nadal responded when asked what he thought when he saw the roof being closed. “Congrats (to the USTA) because the court looks fantastic. The real thing is for a good show, for the comfort of the fans, and for the fans in general (watching) on television, it’s an unbelievable improvement.”

Novak Djokovic is also into the third round, and he made his way there despite not striking a single ball on Wednesday. The top-seeded Serb got a walkover from Jiri Vesely, who cited an arm injury in the wake of a grueling five-set victory over Saketh Myneni on Monday.

Gael Monfils replaced Djokovic during the day session on Arthur Ashe and he treated the fans to an entertaining 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 defeat of qualifier Jan Satral. Confident that he was not seriously threatened, especially as the match progressed to its latter stages, the flamboyant Frenchman went into borderline exhibition mode and displayed his well-known arsenal of trick shots and general tomfoolery.

A more business-like Jo-Wilfried Tsonga received a tougher test from James Duckworth, but passed it with flying colors in the form of a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 triumph.

“Today was a good match,” Tsonga assessed. “I played well. I don’t know what [Duckworth] will say, but I think it was a good level. I saw the statistics after the match, and I served well. I returned well. The only thing…I [converted] only four breaks on my 25 break points…. Today I’m pretty happy the way I played.”

Tsonga and Monfils are joined in round three by fellow Frenchman Lucas Pouille, who improbably came back from the brink of defeat to outlast qualifier Marco Chiudinelli. Not only did the 34-year-old Swiss lead two sets to love, but he also served for the match at 6-4, 6-3, 5-4. Pouille managed to break back, survived the third frame of play in a tiebreaker, and ended up prevailing 4-6, 3-6, 7-6(6), 6-2, 6-0.

Next up for Pouille on Friday is Roberto Bautista Agut, while Monfils will face Nicolas Almagro and Tsonga is set to go up against Kevin Anderson. Nadal will battle Andrey Kuznetsov for the third time this season.

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