Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Doubles Action Gets Underway at the US Open

The doubles tournaments got underway at the US Open on Day 3, seeing action from the Men's, Women's, and Mixed Doubles draws. Star players, seeds, young guns, singles specialists, and plenty of Americans all took the court as they began their journey towards a grand slam title.

On the men's side, most of the matches went as expected with the majority of the favorites getting wins. The seeded teams of Matkowski/Zimonjic, Bopanna/Mergea, Murray/Peers, Nestor/Roger-Vasselin, Herbert/Mahut, and Cabal/Farah each got straight sets wins to get their biggest tournament of the year started on the right path. Meanwhile, three seeded teams were disappointed as Pospisil/Sock were upended by the team of Mayer/Sousa, while the No. 1 seeds, the Bryan brothers, and the No. 2 seeds, Dodig/Melo, were beaten. All three matches took three very tight sets to decide a winner.

There were seven all-American teams in action with the teams of Johnson/Querrey and Russell/Young getting the lone wins. Kudla/Smyczek, Baughman/Paul, Fratangelo/Novikov, and Krajicek/Monroe all exited after their first round matches. In fairness, none of these four teams were expected to win, but each of them should be excited to have garnered some experience at the US Open. The Bryan brothers, as mentioned earlier, were taken down by Johnson/Querrey. Meanwhile, the winners of the US Open National Playoff, Peralta/Seeberger, gave it a valiant effort, but eventually lost in three sets to Giraldo/Junaid, two very experienced players.

Winners not mentioned above: Bellucci/Demoliner, Chardy/Kubot, Bury/Istomin, Pavic/Venus, Fyrstenburg/Gonzalez, and Muller/Qureshi.

On the women's side, it was more of the same as seeded teams went 7-0 on the day. The teams of Dellacqua/Shvedova, Garcia/Srebotnik, Hlavackova/Hradecka, Muguruza/Suarez Navarro, Chan/Chan, Krajicek/Strycova, and Medina Garrigues/Parra Santonja all won with relative ease.

All-American teams went 3-1 on the day, with Gibbs/Townsend, Muhammad/Sanchez, and Black/Neel getting wins, while the team of Lepchenko/Riske bowed out to the No. 7 seeds Hlavackova/Hradecka. Meanwhile, another American, Vania King, teamed up with Saisai Zheng to get a win in a third set tiebreaker.

Singles star Jelena Jankovic teamed up with fellow Serbian Aleksandra Krunic to get an easy straight sets victory.

Winners not mentioned above: Niculescu/Savchuk, Kichenok/Kichenok, Barthel/Siegemund, Govortsova/Tsurenko, and Begu/Olaru.

The Mixed Doubles draw got under way but only with two matches on the schedule. The juniors team of Claire Liu and Taylor Fritz was on display, but were given the extremely difficult draw of Martina Hingis and Leander Paes losing 6-2 6-2. The other team on display was the US Open National Playoff winners Perianu/Daescu, who also received a tough draw. Anastasia Rodionova and Max Mirnyi got the win against them in straights 6-2 6-4.

More doubles action will take place on Day 4 with 9 men's doubles matches, 14 women's doubles matches, and 9 mixed doubles matches.

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