Just a passing 'well done' to Bedene for winning in three, easily.
And I feel for Kyle, it was one of his better matches, I agree with the Guardian, there was no real sign of any physical problems - he played a poor TB in the second set, and not great in the third, but amazingly well for quite a long period in the fourth. That's not someone who's got conditioning problems. Yes, he fizzled at the end of the fifth but that was, in my view, exasperation at seeing the match slip.
Last 16 in 2016, last 32 in 2017 and now 2 straight first round losses against very beatable opposition. Very sad to see how far backwards he has gone at this event.
He has only won two matches in the last five slams.
Don't get too depressed over that. That duplicates Johanna Konta's record after reaching the semi finals of Wimbledon in 2017. Since then she has reached a semi final and quarter final in a Slam so who knows Kyle could do the same.
Rublev vs Tsitsipas is where I'm at right now. Cracking match.
Rublev wins it in 4 sets. Tsitsipas winless in Montreal, Cincinnati and now here.
And according to Stu Fraser in today's Times, he took a leaf out of the Nick Kyrgios "How to be a tennis bad boy" book during the match:
[...] after a 6-4 6-7(5-7) 7-7(907) 7-5 defeat by Andrey Rublev of Russia, he laid the blame at the feet of the French chair umpire [question: why has it suddenly become necessary to put "chair" in front of "umpire"? ], Damien Dumusois, for awarding him a point penalty for a time violation.
When the dust settles, however, Tsitsipas should take a good look at himself. Dumusois rightly told him that he was taking too long in between games to change his bandana and Tsitsipas, the No 8 seed, responded with an unsavoury outburst.
"Do whatever, you want because you are the worst," Tsitsipas shouted. "You have something against me because you are French probably and you are all weirdos. Give me a warning, I don't care." As it was Tsitsipas's second offence, he was deducted a point.
Earlier, he had received a warning for illegal coaching. The culprit was his father, Apostolos, although ironically sitting next to him at the time was Patrick Mouratoglou, who made a coaching gesture to Serena Williams in last year's final that kick-started the now infamous row.
"It's not very pleasant when you have the umpire [at least he got that right!] give you warnings and time violations and coaching violations during a match," Tsitsipas said. "It can affect your thinking. It can affect your decision-making. [I should have thought the answer to that was simple: don't bloody do it then! ] "The chair [spoke too soon! ] umpire was very incorrect in what he was telling me during the match. I don't know what this chair umpire has in specific against my team, but he's been complaining and telling me my team talks all of the time when I'm out on the court playing. I believe he's not right because I never hear anything of what my team says from the outside. And there is nothing that I personally believe can help my game or make me play better. My father, who usually does the talking, is trying to pump me up by saying 'Come on'. I believe the coach for my opponent does the same thing, which is normal. The chair umpire has something against me. I don't know why."
I don't know if you actually saw it, SC, but to be fair, Tsitsipas was pretty calm and unruffled when he go the violation point, he wasn't have a temper tantrum - it's true he used the word 'weirdo' which was a bit out of order (and wrong, the umpire wasn't being 'weird') and he shouldn't have made an issue about him being French, if he did (I didn't hear that bit).
But the main part I heard, watching it, was Tsitsipas just saying, 'go ahead, give me a violation, do what you've got to do, I don't care'. And it wasn't rude as such, he was just changing his sweatbands, as it was hot, and taking too long, and didn't care if it took too long and he got a point, he was going to change them properly.
Personally, I think Fraser is making too big a deal out of it.
Not US Open related, however the umpire of the Wimbledon Djokovic vs Federer final has just been sacked by the ATP. Apparently for doing unauthorised interviews in his native Argentina. Assuming he had been an umpire for years to get to umpire such a high profile match, I can't really understand why he would be so silly.
Was he legit injured or was it standard fakervic, like at the AO that time with Murray?
I did. I'm no Novak fan but he did look injured. He was grimacing hitting his backhand about midway through the first set. I don't think Londero really took advantage of it. After his two treatments, it seemed to improve which was rather miraculous. He was shaking it out a lot, in a way that looked reactive as opposed to contrived.