New York: Somdev Devvarman has advanced into the second round of US Open after winning a close contest against Slovakia's Lukas Lacko on Wednesday. The match went till the fifth set, but finally the Indian won it by 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 after three hours and 11 minutes of match-time. He will now face off 20th seed Italian, Andreas Seppi, in his second-round match.
Devvarman after losing the first set, won the second and third set. However rain interrupted the match and Lukas made a great comeback after the break to win the the fourth set and took the match to the fifth and the deciding set.
Devvarman made 36 unforced errors, which however was less than half of his Slovakian opponent. The Slovakian committed 73 of those and paid the price for that. Devvarman was, however, grilled in the first round not just with the fitness level but with his patience as well as the match was halfted for nearly a halt of nearly four hours due to rain.
When both the players were level at 4-4 in the fifth set, Devvarman crawled by hitting high quality shots which allowed him to break and also to hold. But at 4-4 in the final set, Devvarman came through with a break and held it to claim this match.
Venus Williams lose in 2nd round
Meanwhile in the women’s singles, Venus Williams lost her second round match of US Open to Zheng Jie by 3-6, 6-2, 6-7 on Wednesday. Zheng pushed her hard to the deciding set to seal the fate of the match which went on for three hours. The match between the two was delayed for close to two-and-a-half hour due to rain. After resumption, intense rallies, clubbed with some shift of momentum made the atmosphere much more electrifying.
Venus was off to a terrible start as she wasn’t able to find her rhythm and was misfiring most of her first serves. She made as many as 15 unforced errors which gave her Chinese counterpart a breather as she broke the lead and claimed the set quite comfortably after that.
As the match went into the second set, Venus got her act together and with some brilliant support from the crowd, she got the things going in her favour. She took a strong lead of 5-2 before she went on to claim the set and also level the match.
After an intense second set, Venus was running out of steam and Zheng took her chances and raced away with 3-0 lead. But very soon, American made her way back in the match from 4-1 down to 5-all, but this comeback couldn’t ensure her the victory that she was desperately looking for.
Zheng first claimed the match point by a netted valley and then it was a backhand return that went wide to end the match and also the hopes of Venus and her fans.
In another second round match, the 30th seed, Laura Robson had an intense battle with her French opponent Caroline Garcia for 95 minutes, but the British was good enough to clinch the victory by 6-4, 7-6 and make her way to the third round of US Open.
