Federer stays alive with five-set win at U.S. Open.
NEW YORK (AP) — A bad back prevented Roger Federer from getting ready for the U.S. Open the way he prefers to prepare for a Grand Slam tournament. And it's showed so far.
Federer blamed a lack of proper practice after making an uncharacteristic 68 unforced errors and being forced to go five sets again before coming back to edge a cramping Mikhail Youzhny 1-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 on Thursday in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
It is the first time in his long career that the 36-year-old Federer has played five-setters in both the first and second rounds at a major tournament.
"I knew I was going to maybe struggle early on. Maybe I struggled more than I would have liked to. But I'm still in the draw, which gives me a chance. I still believe I'm going to pick up my game and become just more consistent because I'm not playing all that bad," Federer said. "It's just that I'm going a bit up and down in waves throughout the match."
Given that Federer entered the day with a 16-0 career record against Youzhny and a 16-0 mark in the U.S. Open's second round, one might have thought that their match would be a mismatch. Think again.
"He's also a real man who plays tennis," Youzhny noted. "He's not a god."
Well, OK, that's true. But remember: Federer did not drop a single set en route to his record eighth Wimbledon championship in July. And that he is 37-3 with five titles, including two at majors to raise his record total to 19.
Second on that list, with 15, is No. 1-seeded Rafael Nadal, who was scheduled to face Taro Daniel of Japan in Ashe on Thursday night. That followed 20th-seeded American CoCo Vandeweghe's 7-6 (6), 6-2 victory over Ons Jabeur of Tunisia under the lights.
Two seeded women lost to Americans in the afternoon: Shelby Rogers edged No. 25 Daria Gavrilova 7-6 (6), 4-6, 7-6 (5) in a tournament-record 3 hours, 33 minutes, and Jennifer Brady eliminated No. 23 Barbora Strycova 6-1, 6-1.
A couple of seeded men departed, too: No. 7 Grigor Dimitrov and No. 15 Tomas Berdych, the 2010 Wimbledon runner-up.
The No. 3-seeded Federer won five consecutive U.S. Open championships from 2004-08 and also was the runner-up twice, including two years ago. But he missed last year's tournament while taking off the second half of the season to let his back and surgically repaired left knee fully heal.
That back, an off-and-on issue for years, flared up again while Federer was losing in the final of the Montreal Masters in August. He didn't get to fully work on returns or serves, in particular, as the U.S. Open approached. That lack of training and the resulting lack of timing — rather than pain from his back — is what Federer said caused him problems Tuesday night in the first round against 19-year-old American Frances Tiafoe and again against Youzhny, a former top-10 player who reached the 2006 and 2010 U.S. Open semifinals.