2 Qualifiers onto the 3rd Round, as well as 2 Americans; US Open Day 4 Recap

Due to me not being in the dorm room much today, I only got to cover a few matches.

First off, a final tip of the hat to James Blake as he went out in the doubles today with Jack Sock, officially ending his career. He did American tennis justice for many years and was fun to watch.

Onto my matches, during the day I happened to watch two Frenchman battle each other. Richard Gasquet, the number 8 seed, went up against qualifier Stephane Robert. Gasquet originally went down a break in the first set. But after that Gasquet kept on firing away and caught on fire. He went to break Robert twice in a row, eventually taking the 1st set 6-3. Robert's nice serve kept him in the 2nd set until 5-5. That's when Gasquet broke Robert, after Robert had a disaster game including 3 unforced errors and a double fault. Robert didn't quit though, as he had 2 break points on Gasquet. After not converting, Gasquet won the second set and winning the match 6-3, 7-5, 7-5. He will play 32 seed Dimitry Tursunov (Russia) in the 3rd round.

After getting home from the Fall Out Boy concert, I fortunately got to watch at least another match. In the set I watched, the Gael Monfils (France)-John Isner (USA) match was not a let down. Isner was up 2 sets to 1 as I turned the TV on. The 4th set provided everything that a US Open night match is known for: The energy was great, it was a high level of tennis, and of course everything is cooler under the lights. After Isner was up love-30 on Monfils' serve at 5-6, Monfils won 4 straight points to hold serve to force a 4th set tiebreaker. Isner ending up winning this and the match 7-5, 6-2, 4-6, 7-6. Isner will play German Phillip Kohlschreiber in the 3rd Round. A year ago Kohlscreiber defeated Isner in the 3rd round of the US Open so as Isner said, "I'll get revenge on him."

American Jack Sock is into the 3rd round for the 2nd straight year after beating Maximo Gonzalez, and will play Serbian Janko Tipsarevic.

I went 14-2 Thursday and am now 53-26 with my picks. Here are my picks for Friday:
Djokovic vs. Becker
Hewitt vs. Del Potro
Kudla vs. Berdych
Murray vs. Mayer
Haas vs. Lu
Young vs. Mayer
Granollers vs. Ram
Baghdatis vs. Anderson
Benneateau vs. Chardy
Seppi vs. Devvarman
Bogomolov vs. Smyczek
Wawrinka vs Karlovic
Dolgopolov vs. Youzhny
Nieminen vs. Sousa
Kamke vs. Istomin
Donskoy vs. Gojowczyk

Have a Great Day,
Fry That Chicken