NEW YORK: Venus Williams isn’t having any trouble advancing at the US Open, unlike many of the other top women’s seeds.
The two-time Open champ beat No. 27 seed Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine 6-2, 6-1 yesterday to move on to the fourth round. The seventh-seeded Williams has lost just 11 games in three straight-set wins.
Rafael Nadal continued to impress in his first Grand Slam as a top seed, pumping out a 6-4, 6-3, 6-0 win over Serb Viktor Troicki for a spot in the fourth round. Despite a punishing schedule, the 22-year-old is thriving on court. He won the last 11 games against the Serb after erasing a 1-3 second-set deficit to claim a runaway win in just under two hours, despite 11 aces from his 71st-ranked opponent.
Serena Williams was set to play later. A win, and the sisters would be one victory away from a quarterfinal matchup. Venus will face No. 9 seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in the fourth round.
Radwanska beat 18th-seeded Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 6-0, 6-3. Radwanska defeated Williams in their lone meeting; a straight sets victory in Luxembourg in 2006.
“I’m looking forward to evening the score, I guess,” Williams said. “She played well that time and I’m looking forward to continuing to move well and serve well.”
American Sam Querrey reached the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time with a 7-6, 7-6, 6-2 victory over No. 14 seed Ivo Karlovic of Croatia. The 20-year-old had never advanced past the second round in three previous US Open appearances. Karlovic didn’t manage a single break point against Querrey, who upset No. 22 seed Tomas Berdych in the first round.
Third-seeded Svetlana Kutznetsova became the latest upset victim Friday when Katarina Srebotnik beat her 6-3, 6-7, 6-3. She was one of two former Open champs to go down, as Lindsay Davenport also lost. Olympic champion Elena Dementieva and No. 2 seed Jelena Jankovic advanced Friday, as did Novak Djokovic and Nikolay Davydenko on the men’s side. No. 8 seed Andy Roddick went from a big deficit late Friday night to a big lead in the wee hours of yesterday morning and, eventually, a 3-6, 7-5, 6-2, 7-5 victory over Ernests Gulbis of Latvia. Perhaps it was no coincidence that Roddick turned things around so completely after spiking his equipment.
He had just missed two groundstrokes to fall behind by a set and a break against a 40th-ranked kid who never has won a tournament title, much less a major championship. Moments later, Roddick, winner of the 2003 US Open and a former No. 1, was down 5-3 in the second set.
And then, just like that, buoyed by a raucous partisan crowd, the American collected seven games in a row - and collected control of the match.
“I probably loosened up a bit,” Roddick said, reflecting on the way he treated his racket.
“I just broke it a couple times - just to be thorough,” he said.
Roddick has had a tough season, having lost in the third round of the Australian Open, pulled out of the French Open because of a right shoulder injury, then bowed out at Wimbledon in the second round.
He bypassed the Beijing Olympics, hoping to be better prepared for the US Open by staying on this side of the world. His US Open nearly ended quite early, but he credited the partisan crowd with helping.
“You guys kept me in there when I was losing my head,” Roddick told the Arthur Ashe Stadium fans at match’s end.
“If this crowd comes with me the whole way, who knows?”
