U.S. Open Day 6 recap and photos

Saturday began on the practice courts, where John Isner and Philipp Kohlschreiber were warming up on adjacent courts for their third-round showdown. Mikhail Youzhny and Sergiy Stakhovsky–and coach Boris Sobkin–were also out and about, getting ready for their second-round doubles match.

David Ferrer kicked off men’s singles third-round action on the Grandstand against Mikhail Kukushkin. It doesn’t get much better than watching Ferrer from the front row. Simply a tenacious fighter, with 100-percent intensity on every point and amazing footwork. Like in many matches at this U.S. Open, the favorite jumped out to a big lead then took just a little bit longer than necessary to seal the deal. Some great ball-striking allowed Kukushkin to steal the third set, but Ferrer got things back in gear for the fourth.

Next up on the Grandstand was Janko Tipsarevic vs. Jack Sock. To the delight of the American crowd, Sock came out completely destroying serves and forehands and raced to a somewhat surprising one-set advantage. Once Tipsarevic pulled out a competitive second set, though, it was all but over. The same thing happened to Sock last year on the same court in the same round against Nicolas Almagro: a fast start following by a physical lull down the stretch. Sock has the game, but doesn’t yet have the fitness.

Just as it was throughout the first week of action, Louis Armstrong was the spot. First, Alize Cornet unexpectedly extended Victoria Azarenka to three sets. Cornet won the first but Azarenka battled back to book her spot in the fourth round. When that finally finished, it was time for Isner-Kohlschreiber–a rematch of last year’s third-rounder that Kohlschreiber won in five sets during a night session in Arthur Ashe (a match that tied the latest U.S. Open finish in history, at 2:26 AM). Once again, Kohlschreiber was just too solid from the baseline and timed his return of serve too well for Isner. Playing with much more crowd support on his side this time around, Isner evened the score by taking the second and he almost did the same in the fourth. The American seized a break at 5-5, sending the crowd into a frenzy and putting himself on the brink of a fifth set. Suddenly, though, Isner could not buy a first serve and he failed to close out the set. As usual, one mini-break decided the tiebreaker. It went to Kohlschreiber at 3-3 when Isner sent a forehand long and the German took care of his serve the rest of the way.

Each of the last two matches in Louis Armstrong should have gone the distance, only to end in relatively devastating fashion. Daniel Evans, one of the stories of the tournament, trailed Tommy Robredo two sets to love but the Brit was not about to bow out of his breakout tournament without a fight. Evans took the third and continued to play awesome tennis in the fourth while Robredo seemed to be slowing down both mentally and physically. Evans soon found himself one point from a decider, serving at 5-3, 40-15. A double-fault and a wile forehand error, however, erased the chances. A flustered Evans could not recover and he eventually dropped serve at both 5-3 and 5-5. A much more experienced Robredo made no such mistake at 6-5. The Spaniard converted an incredible match point when Evans appeared to have won a furious exchange at the net before Robredo sent a reflex backhand volley past him to clinch victory.