I'm glad he's through it, but what a painful match to watch, especially the 3rd set. Couldn't see the 4th because live stream packed up on me.

BBC said he had physical problems, I wonder if he wasn't dehydrated, because he didn't seem mentally with it either, and he's usually rubbing something that's aching, and there was no sign of that.

kundalini wrote:

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It looked to me as though the heat had got to him and there was no energy left in his legs. 4th set he would come to life for brief spells. He was lucky that Lopez chose to take risks as that gave Andy his chance, attacking the net at 5-4 presented Murray with the opportunity to hit a superb backhand pass, then an attempted drop shot at mp, failed to get over the net.

-- Edited by kundalini on Saturday 1st of September 2012 09:38:23 PM

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I have to agree with the comment about the heat.  It is no concidence to me that by far his best performance so far has come when he played in the evening under lights and in cooler conditions.

I've nearly recovered from that nerve-mangling match now. I too think the heat affected him - apparently he said after the match that because of the Olympics he hadn't been able to have his usual time in Miami to acclimatise. He certainly seemed to perk up part way through the last set, just looked more engaged with the match - at a time when presumably the day grew cooler? Must have been after 4pm by then?

Feli played really well, I've never seen him play like that before, and I've seen him a good few times against several different players. Anyway, I'll take "winning ugly" over losing any day.

I'm not sure I can stay awake long enough - I'm out in the evening so will be tired. But for Andy's sake I'm glad: he won't have to cope with heat and humidity. Pity it isn't the first evening match, I might have coped with that. Oh, for the days when I could manage to be up at 3am just to watch Challenger live scores. . .

indiana wrote:

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Oh, I was just going to say that I think that's a perfectly OK first four rounds 

Yes, Andy has had trouble with Bogomolov before, but he's lost form and it's a Slam, and I think Bambi is overrated and made for Andy.

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Kind of as that poster in the first page said, but still a very encouraging clinical performance from Andy   

Another example of him taking to US Open night sessions and that the 3rd round was iodeed probably very much about the heat, more than I allowed for, being maybe overconcerned about his lacklustre display there.

Well done by the way to the US Open authorites on their proactivity in decamping the doubles and moving this match forward when there was a threat of later rain, a proactivity that they haven't always shown.

-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 4th of September 2012 02:41:56 AM

indiana wrote:

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RJA wrote:

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Mardy Fish has withdrawn and so Federer gets a walkover.

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So Federer will have one match to play between last Saturday and next Saturday's potential semi final with Andy ! 

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 time to go rusty!