Mo’ guaranteed money, less heat-related problems: Murray
NEW YORK — Overcast skies on Friday brought some relief from the blistering heat that contributed to a record number of mid-match retirements through two rounds of the U.S. Open.
Two women and 12 men had to stop their matches, the most notable of which was American Jack Sock, who cramped so severely that he had to be carried off the court on Thursday. He was leading two sets to none at the time, but the 32 C temperature, coupled with stifling humidity, did him in. The previous record for retirements in a Grand Slam was 10; this tournament easily surpassed that with 10 days of play still remaining.
Andy Murray, who won a five-set match against France’s Adrian Mannarino in which his opponent noticeably flagged in the heat, said one way to cut down on the number of retirements would be to give firstround money to players who earn their way into the tournament, but are not at their best health coming into it.
“I think the player that’s earned the right to be there in the first place, you give them the first-round prize money and you avoid people walking on the court for a few games,” Murray said. “It’s a waste of time for everyone.”
In that scenario, a player with a nagging injury pockets the $39,500 US prize money, but their spot would go to a player who didn’t qualify, who would only make money if they got through to the second round.
But Roger Federer was far less interested in such solutions to the mid-match retirement. His prescription basically amounted to, “Suck it up, muffin.”
“What I don’t understand,” said the five-time champion in New York, “we’ve been here in North America for some time. It’s not like all of a sudden hot. I mean, it was more on the warmer side, but it’s not like impossible to be quite honest.”
“I think everybody should be well- prepared,” Federer said. And: “I think other players should be so fit that heat shouldn’t really matter at that point.”
And here I thought the Swiss were supposed to be diplomatic.
Milos Raonic fought a noticeable back injury through two rounds of the U.S. Open, but he couldn’t pull off a third escape.
The 24-year-old from Thornhill, Ont., again unable to serve with his usual ridiculous velocity, went down in straight sets to 18th-seeded Feliciano Lopez.
The Spaniard broke the 10thseeded Canadian three times — and had a whopping 13 break chances, unheard of against Raonic — on the way to a 6-2, 7-6, 6-3 win. Raonic averaged only 120 miles per hour (193 kilometres per hour) on his first serve, about 10 m.p.h. (16 km/h) off a typical pace for him. He won just 71 per cent of his firstserve points — his career average is about 10 points higher.
He said after his second-round win in New York that the back issue, which has bothered him since last month and is unrelated to an earlier foot injury, comes and goes. It was apparent that it was back on Friday, with Raonic labouring and seeking treatment during the match.
Italy’s Sara Errani offered another possible explanation for why some players are not feeling their best: air conditioning.
“In Europe, there’s not this much air conditioning,” Errani said after her Thursday match, as reported by The Associated Press.
“Too much back and forth with the temperature,” she said.
“You go outside, it’s hot. You come inside, it’s cold. Every time.”
A USTA spokesman told the AP that there had been some complaints about the locker-rooms and interview rooms being too cold, but that both were kept around 21 C.
One of the small joys of a major tennis event are the utterly random questions that pop up in post-match press conferences. Because access to players, for most of the 1,000 or so journalists in Flushing Meadows, is limited to these sessions and many of them are already working on a certain angle to a story, they have to ask their out-of-no-where question when they get the chance.
So when Murray just finished a five-set triumph on Thursday, a match in which he dropped the first two sets before roaring back, here was the first question posed to him: “Why are you wearing Adidas shoes?”
(The short answer: the shoes made by his sponsor, Under Armour, were fine for grass courts, but not yet ready for hard courts.)
Later, after Federer completed a straight- sets win, the first question was, suitably, about how he is playing this year relative to past years. The second question: “Would you vote for Marcelo Rios if you were a voter for the Hall of Fame?”
After saying that he really didn’t know what the criteria was, Federer said Rios, the 39-year-old Chilean who was briefly the top-ranked player in the world, “was one of my favourite players to watch, so I would vote yes.”
Glad that is settled.