Perhaps the most notable upset of the day at the U.S. Open was fifth seed Milos Raonic bowing out to American Ryan Harrison.
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Third-seeded Muguruza, who has struggled in the aftermath of her breakthrough in Paris in June, slumped to a 7-5, 6-4 loss to Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova, the World No.48.
Konta won the first set 6-2 and was up a break in the second, which the 71st-ranked Pironkova went on to win 7-5. Resilient after double-faulting on set point to give Raonic the first set, Harrison stayed the course yesterday for a 6-7 (4), 7-5, 7-5, 6-1 victory. “The coolest thing for me this year is that me and my brother are both playing in the main draw”.
“It was extremely physical out there”.
“It’s mental maturity, a little bit of stabilization with everything around me that is allowing me to play with a sense of calm and also with excitement”, said Harrison, who turned pro almost a decade ago and reached a top ranking of 43rd in 2012. He will face American Ryan Harrison later Wednesday afternoon. He hit just six winners in the fourth set, but faced no break points and committed just one unforced error, putting together a near flawless set to close out the victory.
Harrison also picked up four wins over top 55 players last July before cruising through three US Open qualifying matches without losing a set.
The fifth-seeded Raonic was treated by a trainer for problems with his left wrist and left thigh during the match and generally looked tired as play went on. There was a lot of nerves and stress. At the time, Canada’s Raonic, a year and a half older than Harrison, already had cracked the top 15.
While tournament favorite Novak Djokovic had a day off thanks to a withdrawal from Jiri Vesely due to a forearm issue, Rafael Nadal was on court against Andreas Seppi, and the 2-time Spaniard rolled to a 6-0, 7-5, 6-1 win.
Defending champion Djokovic, who has been struggling with a wrist injury, gets three days off before facing Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny on Friday.
In the women’s singles, Caroline Woznicaki showed signs of the kind of form that took her to the world number one ranking a few years back, outclassing the experienced Svetlana Kuznetsova, seeded nine, 6-4, 6-4.
The 26-year-old Dane recovered from 0-4 down in the first set to record a seventh win in eight meetings and third in NY over the ninth-seeded Russian.
After a medical timeout, the Briton dropped the second set before heading off on a lengthy toilet break which did little to help her opponent’s composure in the decider.
“I’m a little embarrassed”. Anything is possible when I have you [fans] cheering for me. “I think it’s best and easiest at this point, this week I was with him, but having thought about it, and for Milos’ sake, for ESPN and my sake, I think it’s best that we stop right now doing what we’re doing”.
Germany’s Angelique Kerber beat Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic-Baroni of Croatia 6-2 7-6 (7) to book her place in the next round.
Atherton’s CiCi Bellis is sticking around a little longer at the U.S. Open this time.
Britain’s Kyle Edmund backed up his first round win over world number 15 Richard Gasquet with a 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 victory over USA wildcard Ernesto Escobedo on the back of 53 winners.
In other men’s results, mercurial Frenchman Gael Monfils, the No. 10 seed, continued to showcase a more mature on-court attitude in a 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 victory Wednesday over Czech Jan Satral.
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Former US Open champion Marin Cilic beat Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine 6-1 6-2 6-3 in a match that lasted for exactly 100 minutes.
