I don't think that Andy is too far away but probably one step too far for him right now. He's done well to quell worries about his ability to play top tennis, though.
But if much of Andy's recent issues have been confidence, particularly that he can still do it against the top players, that win against Tsonga may have done him a lot of good.
He says he's as fit as he's been in a long while ( other than that mysterious cramping episode no reason to doubt this ) and that he is pretty close to playing his best tennis ( it was pretty good and pleasingly consistent vs Tsonga ).
This might just be much closer than many people are expecting...
The stadium seems half empty particularly for the afternoon sessions is it as difficult as Wimbledon to get tickets in the second week? Or are they just all munching fast food outside?
It wasn't in 2008 when I walked up to the ticket booth at Flushing Meadows pretty much on spec on the day and got tickets for Ashe for both sessions ( Andy played a night session L16 match against Wawrinka ). The night was apparently fairly close to sold out, but no problem at all for the Ashe day session.
Unless Mr Nishikori or Mr Wawrinka collapses in the immediate future, Mr Murray may be having a very late match indeed. Incidentally, shame on the US Open schedulers. Tomorrow they have a women's semifinal that involves Martina Hingis, Flavia Pennetta, Cara Black and Sania Mirza ... yet somehow they couldn't find it in themselves to put any women's matches on Ashe?
Generally the women get a much better showcourt deal at the US Open compared to Wimbledon, both in numbers ( they do have more hours ), but also relative to the men.
But yes, I agree re tomorrow's schedule. Don't alert Ratty to that exhibition match :)
Re the marathon Wawrinka vs Nishikori match, not great for us, but more importantly I doubt Andy will be concerned about playing at a very late hour. Anyone's guess when the night session will finally start and we've got Serena up first.
Just checked the OoP for tomorrow. What on earth are the organizers thinking? Exhibitions can fill Grandstand/Armstrong at a push but putting one under the lights on Ashe?
An extremely tight set ends with a whimper from Andy at 6(1)-7 with an awful TB. And then there's the fact that Murray has never beaten Djokovic after losing the first set.
Got up just too late to see the end. What Ratty said ^^^. Very worried that the back still doesn't seem to be right, even after the surgery which is now nearly a year ago.
I only saw the second set, which was lucky and he played some inspired tennis, he does need to be at his physical peak to beat the other three superstar players and it appears he is a little way off that. Hopefully Andy will get a period of 6 months where he is injury free and get his conditioning back, then I feel he has a few more slams in him. Just to state the obvious but these guys are some of the best players to ever play tennis and seeing them slog it out in these epic battles is phenomenal. Borg nearly put me off tennis for life as a kid historically his record is comparable to these greats but I really wonder if he could have stood toe to toe with the big boys of today's game.
Just checked the OoP for tomorrow. What on earth are the organizers thinking? Exhibitions can fill Grandstand/Armstrong at a push but putting one under the lights on Ashe?
What else did you expect them to put on there? There are only 2 singles matches tomorrow, 1 in the day and 1 on the night.
Besides the people who have tickets for the night session get to watch Federer v Monfils in Grand Slam QF. Most of them would be annoyed if it was proceeded by a long drawn out out doubles match between 4 players they had never heard of.