Big Johny and a recovering Mardy Fish keep their march in Washington with straight sets wins.
Isner – Kuznetsov 7-6 (2) 7-6 (4)
It took another couple of tiebreak for the American no.1 to win this match against world no. 139 Alex Kuznetsov. Big Johny blasted 19 aces to save 9 break points out of 10. This was the big difference with his opponent that has saved only 1 break point out of 2. See stats
Isner will play Somdev Devvarman from India in the next round to comment “Somdev’s a great player and he’s also a good friend, and I knew eventually our paths would cross. Now it’s happening here, sort of close to UVA, so he might have a lot of the crowd on his side. It’ll be a fun match and I’m going to need to play very well.” This will be the first match between these two.
Fish – Benneteau 6-3 7-5
Mardy won a very good match against an always dangerous Julien Benneteau (now ranked 35) to comment “It was a good test to see where I was,” said Fish. “It’s a good court for me, it’s very fast. It was a good test, I passed, and move on to the next one. Those guys still have to finish and Kevin Anderson’s got a nice run going, obviously playing well last week, so he’ll be tough if he gets through.”
In the other matches Stepanek had a very good win against Michael Llodra 6-2 6-1 (stats) and world no.61 Dmitry Tursunov upset Simon 6-4 6-2.
