|
 Defending men's champion Marin Cilic and two-time winner Rafa Nadal
and world number one Novak Djokovic also eased into the third round
with straight sets 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.
"I think we all have not-so-good days," said Bencic. "I know I
shouldn't have behaved like that."
After playing his opening match on an outside court, Cilic took his
U.S. Open title defense 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.
During last year's magical run Cilic was invincible on the main
court, sweeping past Tomas Berdych in the quarters, taking out Roger
Federer in three sets in the semi-finals and Kei Nishikori in a
one-sided final.
"This court is very special for me, brings back special memories,"
the ninth seeded Cilic said. "It's sort of unreal. I was working all
my life to win a grand slam and now I'm in position to defend one."
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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 U.S. Open finalist but winning it all 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 U.S. 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.
"I have got a lot of great memories; I've got a lot of good wins out
here," Fish said.
"I probably would have chosen this one as my last one regardless if
I didn't have any issues with my health in the past couple of years,
just because this is the biggest one and the most fun and the one
that you want to go out on."
(Editing by John O'Brien/Sudipto Ganguly)
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