Having had nothing but praise for the Open, I found myself having my first moan up last night! I don’t know what the Staff were drinking or smoking yesterday!Possibly crack! Rude and classless though from several members, which is a shame as the majority are very, very pleasant indeed! After the conclusion of the Nadal match/interview, I thought it was a good opportunity to get a quick photo court side, for blog purposes of course! I was pretty much told to get the hell out of the stadium by two members! So you find it acceptable to let people in who don’t have tickets for show courts, but people who have paid can’t even get a quick snap!Kl! Noted! Not sure what was wrong with the first person I asked, the other it’s not my fault if you haven’t emptied your sack in four days because you have had a few late nights! Then on the way out, a member of staff with her name badge and uniform still on was having a fully fledged row with a busker! When I say a row, I mean to the point where they are cussing each other out in front of thousands of people and right up in each other’s grill! Like I say classy!Good PR all round!Moan up complete. GSM!

However, I do love a good evening session at the U.S! As I have seen a lot of Coco Vandeweghe over the summer, I actually forfeited most of her match to watch the end of Madison Keys against Tatjana Maria on the Louis Armstrong! Keys can be hugely frustrating to watch at times, so much firepower, but there are times where she needs to harness it a bit! She got the job done 3 and 4 though against a player who has a lot of strings to her bow, including a slice backhand that cuts right through the court! The fact she got it done in relatively routine fashion will please her no end! The ferocity of her hitting being consistent enough, though she actually hit 36 winners to 36 unforced errors!

As this concluded, Coco was already a set and a break up against Ons Jabeur, she doesn’t like to mess about does our Coco. So after a quick fire cigarette, it was Rafa time! Taro Daniel came out firing last night, hitting with pace and depth, waiting for the short ball before nailing a winner! This went on for a set and a half, by which time he led Rafa by a set and a break! The problem was you knew he was playing as well as he possibly could, where as Rafa was slightly misfiring and making uncharacteristic errors! It couldn’t last! The Federer fans were getting quite excited around the stadium, so probably about 80% of the crowd! Back in your hutch! As Nadal broke back you knew there was a momentum shift, as was always going to be the case! In the blink of an eye, the forehand was purring as Daniel’s level dropped and Nadal was two sets to one up in no time! It was in effect all over! An early break in the fourth and that was that it was just a question of how respectable the scoreline was from there on in! Nadal 4/6 6/3 6/2 6/2.

Federer brought his change of pants as did his fans…yet again, after failing to impress in a five set win over Mikhail Youzhny! Other five set winners included Gael Monfils against Donald Young and David Goffin over Guido Pella! All three of these players have had injury concerns coming into the fortnight! Dominic Thiem beat Taylor Fritz in four and Juan Martin Del Potro beat Menendez-Maceiras in straights! The big upset of the day came as Andrey Rublev ousted Grigor Dimitrov in straights! The Cincy champion came into the event with high hopes, but the 19-year-old Russian claims the biggest scalp of his career following his first title in Umag recently!

In the women’s event, top seed Karolina Pliskova
came through an almighty scare against American Nicole Gibbs. Elina Svitolina and Jelena Ostapenko had fewer problems in beating Evgeniya Rodina and Sorana Cirstea respectively. Naomi Osaka backed up beating Kerber, but only just, beating Denisa Allertova 7/5 in the decider. American Jennifer Brady hammered Barbora Strycova 6/1 6/1. Svetlana Kuznetsova is out though, losing to Kurumi Nara!

Andy Del Potro