Player of the day --- Mikhail Youzhny

After the Federer match(see my early post) in Armstrong stadium, in came Rafael Nadal, world#2 from Spain, and Mikhail Youzhny, unseeded player from Russia.

Before the match, no one had given Youzhny any chances against Nadal, including so-called expert Patrick McEnroe who said before the match, in his words “ Nadal will steam roll Youzhny”. Well he had to eat his words.

Most of the fans in the Luis Armstrong stadium, as normal New Yorkers would always do, rooted for the underdog Youzhny as the match began. However, they quickly realized Youzhny is a great player from watching his textbook like backhand and forehand grand strokes, and he can pull off a big upset. As a hard core tennis fan, I know about Youzhny for years, and I also knew from the beginning he can pull off an upset because I was also courtside on opening day this year watching him knocked out 19th seed Hrbaty on one of those smaller courts. I know he was in top form and especially in the nice 70 degrees weather where Nadal can’t wear people down with his over powering shots and his superb conditioning.

Sure enough, after 3+ hours of high quality tennis, the match was over in 4 sets, and Youzhny upset Nadal and it was one of the best matches I see.

After the Youzhny match, we walked over to next door, the Grand Stand stadium to catch some Women’s double action by none other than Martina Navratilova, a player who will be 50 years old!, playing against players almost 1/3 of her age!! Martina still had her touch and angle volleys, but I could see clearly she was a step slower and her ground strokes were weak. Only because of her partner Petrova’s powerful serves coupled with the inexperiences of their young and beautiful opponents Ana Ivanovic and Maria Kirilenko gave Martina their 3 set victory. Otherwise, that would’ve been Martina’s last match of her career.(She announced she is retiring, again. This time is for sure she said)

After the Martina’s match, and, guess what? Here came Mikhail Youzhny again with his partner Leos Friedl. They were to play their rain delayed men’s double match against the #1 doubles player, the Bryan Brother. Does Youzhny have another upset in him after resting for only 1 hour after his tough 4 set single’s match? The score line did not look very promising, the Bryan Brothers had already won the 1st set and up a services break before rain set in the day before. All that they need to do to advance is simply holding their own service games which is much easier to do in Men’s doubles. But Youzhny and Friedl dug deep and immediately broke serves twice, unfortunately, sensing that Youzhny was tired, the Bryan brothers directed most of their shots to him, and they were able to break Youzhny/Firedl one time. Youzhny put 3 straight easy volleys into the net in that game.

Also sensing his partner is tired, Leos Friedl decided to take charge, and boy, did he ever!
His powerful low passing shots, well controlled lops, feather light touch drop shots, well placed angle volleys… He was the no-name player among the 4 players on the court, but was far and away the best player. The Friedl/Youzhny pair took the second set in a tie-breaker.

In the 3rd and decisive set, Friedl/Youzhny broke for a lead early, but a tired Youzhny plus a bad overrule by the Empire gave that break back to the Bryan Brothers for a 4-4 tie. Sensing the end of the finishing line, Youzhny all the sudden became very active, and they were able to break in the 9th game. Youzhny then served out the match for a 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 victory. It was an enjoyable double’s match to watch, especially when we can hardly see any of them in TV anymore.

Youzhny had done something that is very rare to see: beating the #2 singles player, and #1 doubles players, all in a same day.