After another slow start, Serena blasts away

NEW YORK, September 3

The Serena Williams show continued at the US Open as the world No. 1 moved a step closer to a calendar Grand Slam on Wednesday, while Mardy Fish took a final Flushing Meadows bow as the curtain came down on the American’s career.

Defending men’s champion Marin Cilic and two-time winner Rafa Nadal and world No. 1 Novak Djokovic also eased into the third round with straight-set wins as the temperatures and stakes continue to rise at the year’s final Grand Slam.

Bidding to become just the fourth woman to win all four Slams in the same year, no one has more riding on the Flushing Meadows fortnight than Williams, who continued her quest with an error-strewn 7-6(5) 6-3 victory over Dutchwoman Kiki Bertens.

The 110th-ranked Bertens put up a valiant fight and had Williams, who struggled with her serve firing 10 double faults, on the ropes in the opening set. However, the 33-year-old American’s class shone through in the second set as she broke Bertens three-times to seal her 23rd consecutive US Open victory.

“I never stop. I keep going and give the best effort that I can,” Williams said after raising her 2015 match record to 50-2.

Williams was joined in the third round by sister Venus who outlasted Irina Falconi 6-3 6-7(2) 6-2 to set up an intriguing clash with Swiss teenager Belinda Bencic, one of only two players to beat Serena this season.

Born in 1997, the same year Venus made her US Open debut, Bencic survived a second set meltdown that left her sobbing and a determined Misaki Doi of Japan to claim a nervy 5-7 7-6(3) 6-3 victory.

After playing his opening match on an outside court, Cilic took his US Open title defence back to a sweltering Arthur Ashe Stadium and looked right at home, storming into the third round with a 6-2 6-3 7-5 win over Russian qualifier Evgeny Donskoy.

Few upsets

Two-time champion Nadal got his second round contest off to a sluggish start but the eighth seeded Spaniard was quickly in control, dispatching Diego Schwartzman 7-6(5) 6-3 7-5 as the Argentine saw his record against top 10 opponents drop to 0-6.

Djokovic, a five-time US Open finalist but winning it just once in 2011, has been in imperious form strolling into the third round with a clinical 6-4 6-1 6-2 win over Austrian Andreas Haider-Mauer.

After a first round littered with upsets, second round action went largely according to script as Spanish seventh seed David Ferrer beat Serb Filip Krajinovic 7-5 7-5 7-6(4) and Canadian 10th seed Milos Raonic fought off back pain to beat Spain’s Fernando Verdasco 6-2 6-4 6-7(5) 7-6(1).

It was the end of road, however, for Fish, who announced earlier this year that he would retire after playing his 13th US Open. Following an 18-month layoff, Fish, who suffers from a severe anxiety disorder, returned to the ATP Tour in March and went down swinging in his Flushing Meadows farewell, stretching out his final match as long as he could before falling 2-6 6-3 1-6 7-5 6-3 to 18th seeded Feliciano Lopez.

Paes, Bopanna advance

Leander Paes and Martina Hingis eased past Taylor Harry Fritz and C Lui 6-2 6-2 to enter the mixed doubles second round. Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea entered the men’s doubles second round after beating Austin Krajicek and Nicholas Monroe 6-3 6-4. — Reuters, PTI

Results (Round 2) 

Men

1-Novak Djokovic (Serbia) bt Andreas Haider-Maurer (Austria) 6-4 6-1 6-2; 8-Rafa Nadal (Spain) bt Diego Schwartzman (Argentina) 7-6(5) 6-3 7-5; 19-Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (France) bt Marcel Granollers (Spain) 6-3 6-4 6-3; 10-Milos Raonic (Canada) bt Fernando Verdasco (Spain) 6-2 6-4 6-7(5) 7-6(1); 9-Marin Cilic (Croatia) bt Evgeny Donskoy (Russia) 6-2 6-3 7-5; 18-Feliciano Lopez (Spain) bt Mardy Fish (US) 2-6 6-3 1-6 7-5 6-3; 7-David Ferrer (Spain) bt Filip Krajinovic (Serbia) 7-5 7-5 7-6(4); Mikhail Kukushkin (Kazakhstan) bt 17-Grigor Dimitrov (Bulgaria) 6-3 7-6(2) 2-6 4-6 6-4

Women 

1-Serena Williams (US) bt Kiki Bertens (Netherlands) 7-6(5) 6-3; 23-Venus Williams (US) bt Irina Falconi (US) 6-3 6-7(2) 6-2; Dominika Cibulkova (Slovakia) bt Jessica Pegula (US) 5-7 7-5 6-3; Bethanie Mattek-Sands (US) bt CoCo Vandeweghe (US) 6-2 6-1; 15-Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) bt Magda Linette (Poland) 6-3 6-2; 25-Eugenie Bouchard (Canada) bt Polona Hercog (Slovenia) 6-3 6-7(2) 6-3