The Spanish top seed ran out a comfortable winner in the end, but he was made to work hard by an opponent who went for his shots at every opportunity, especially in a closely-contested first two sets.
Games went with serve in the opening set, forcing a tie-break which saw Nadal grab an early mini-break to go 3-1 up. That gave him the cushion he needed as he went on to take it 7-4. Serves remained on top in the second set under the lights of the Arthur Ashe Centre Court with Gabashvili staving off two set points at 6-5 down. But the ensuing tie-break Nadal establishing command early on to make it two sets to nil by an identical 7-4 scoreline.
Seven games into the third set, Nadal finally grabbed his first break of serve in the match, converting his eighth break point when Gabashvili netted a forehand drive.
The Spaniard ran off the next two games for the match, and conquered the match that lasted three minutes short of three hours.
Djokovic stumbles to win
The heat almost accounted for third-seed Novak Djokovic, who needed to claw his way back from two sets to one and a break down before finally seeing off fellow Serb Viktor Troicki 6-3, 3-6, 2-6, 7-5, 6-3 in three hours and 40 minutes of punishing tennis.
Among seeded players to fall were 16th-seed Marcos Baghdatis, who went down 6-3, 2-6, 1-6, 6-4, 7-5 to French veteran Arnaud Clement, and 24th-seed Ernests Gulbis, who fell 6-2, 7-6 (7/1), 6-4 to Jeremy Chardy of France. American 19th-seed Mardy Fish almost joined them before he got the better of Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic 6-0, 3-6, 4-6, 6-0, 6-1 in a roller-coaster of a match.
Wozniacki advances
Danish top-seed Caroline Wozniacki breezed into the second round while fourth-seed Jelena Jankovic struggled through and China’s eighth-seeded Li Na was eliminated.
Wozniacki, who lost to Kim Clijsters in last year’s US Open final, began her quest for her first Grand Slam title by dispatching US wild card Chelsey Gullickson 6-1, 6-1 in a 61-minute matchup of 20-year-olds. The Dane, who has a season-best four titles the year and a 15-1 record since Wimbledon, played solid defence and frustrated the power-hitting American college champion at every turn.
Jankovic, seeking her first Grand Slam title, beat 96th-rated Romanian teen Simona Halep 6-4, 4-6, 7-5. The 2008 US Open runner-up nearly suffered her first opening-match Slam exit since the 2005 French Open.
Li, the highest Chinese seed in Grand Slam history, lost 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 to Ukraine’s Kateryna Bondarenko.
Russia’s top stars advance
Maria Sharapova, a three-time Grand Slam champion seeded 14th and on a path to face Wozniacki in the fourth round, outlasted Australia’s 60th-ranked Jarmila Groth 4-6, 6-3, 6-1. Seventh-seed Vera Zvonareva, the Wimbledon runner-up, defeated Slovakia’s Zuzana Kucova 6-2, 6-1 while 11th-seed Svetlana Kuznetsova beat Japan’s Kimiko Date Krumm 6-2, 4-6, 6-1.
Mirza out of US open
India’s Sania Mirza saw her US Open hopes come crashing down when she lost a second-round tie 6-3, 6-4 to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia. The 23-year-old had raised hopes with a fine run of four wins in a row in New York coming through the qualifiers and a first-round tie against Michelle Larcher de Brito of Portugal.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 2nd, 2010.
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