For all the dire forecasts — weather and otherwise — that were supposed to rattle the United States Open field, the storms seemed to pass on Sunday with very little of the expected doom and gloom. The wind, which had turned Saturday into a mess of a blustery day, calmed by Sunday afternoon and all seemed well except the dark patch hanging over Andy Murray, the tournament’s version of Eeyore.
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Kim Clijsters defeated Ana Ivanovic, 6-2, 6-1, on Sunday.
Kim Clijsters, the No. 2 seed, started the day squashing any upset thoughts Ana Ivanovic might have had in their fourth-round match, charging through a 6-2, 6-1 victory in less than an hour. Venus Williams, the No. 3 seed, looked like the picture of frustration against Shahar Peer of Israel, but she was never in any real danger in her 7-6 (3), 6-3 victory. And No. 1 Rafael Nadal even went so far as to make his match against Gilles Simon of France look easy, something he almost never does at the Open. But Nadal simply crushed Simon, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2, in less than two hours.
And even Simon had a consolation prize: his wife had their first baby two days ago, so he gets to rush home to see his son.
Murray, the No. 4 seed, was the only one courting disaster. After a nice rebound to win the first set in a tiebreaker, he squandered a lead in the second to lose that in a tiebreaker, and appeared to still be reeling in the third. He double-faulted on break point to fall behind 1-4, a slide interrupted by Wawrinka calling for the trainer to attend to his right knee.
Wawrinka returned to the court with his thigh heavily taped and won the third set, 6-3.Aside from Murray’s match, perhaps the most telling was Williams’s. She showed a measure of toughness that was not entirely assured at the beginning of her tournament. Because of a knee injury, Williams had not played since Wimbledon, a tournament she had bowed out of meekly in the quarterfinals.
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Getting past Peer, who unleashed a punishing forehand to counteract Williams’s superior serve and power, meant Williams could not relax for a minute. And she didn’t.
“It’s always good to have a tough match, I think, or tougher match, kind of a match where you have to challenge yourself against your opponent and the conditions and everything and just continue to stay tough and to stay positive,” Williams said. “I was happy to do that today. We always have had very competitive matches, so I know it’s not going to be something I just walk through when I play against her. I have to stay focused and ready to take every point or else she will. It was a good challenge.”
Williams’s other challenge was keeping her self-designed dress in place, a task that required a constant series of tugs to keep it from riding up her legs.
“The only thing that bothered me was when I didn’t win the point,” Williams said. “That was it.”
The first set required a tiebreaker after Peer had battled to stay in the set at 5-6. Peer fell behind, 0-40, and faced five break points, any one of which would have given Williams the set. In all, the game went 22 points, including some long rallies with spectacular shots, before Peer managed to win.
Williams could have grown discouraged, but instead dominated the tiebreaker to take care of any potential drama. She now moves on to play No. 6 Francesca Schiavone of Italy, who won easily over Anastasia Palyuchenkova of Russia, 6-3, 6-0.
In men’s third-round matches, No. 20 Sam Querrey beat Nicolas Almagro of Spain in straight sets and No. 8 Fernando Verdasco of Spain won in four sets over David Nalbandian. And in a match between two Spaniards, No. 10 David Ferrer beat Daniel Gimeno-Traver, 7-6 (2), 6-2, 6-2. No. 8 Feliciano Lopez, also of Spain, advanced when Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine retired in the second set. Michael Llodra of France also retired in the fourth set, paving the way Tommy Robredo of Spain to advance as well.
The fourth-round match between Clijsters and Ivanovic held plenty of intrigue because both are former No. 1 players in some stage of navigating a career detour. Both are powerful and physically gifted: Ivanovic being 6-foot-1 and Clijsters among the quickest, most athletic players on tour.
But Clijsters held the decisive edge in confidence, a quality she enjoys and Ivanovic, who is still trying to figure out what metaphorical bus hit her after she reached No. 1 in the world two years ago, is desperately searching for.
Clijsters wore her advantage like a suit of armor in a victory that took only 59 minutes. Clijsters moved on to the quarterfinals, where she will play the winner of the night match between No. 5 Samantha Stosur and No. 12 Elena Dementieva.
“You always want to do well at the tournaments where you’ve done well,” Clijsters said. “Obviously the U.S. Open is a special tournament to me. I wasn’t able to defend my title in 2006 so coming here as a defending champion is a new experience and something that kid of keeps it fresh too. Tennis-wise, I feel I’ve been improving every match. I want to try and keep it going.”
Clijsters’s victory was stunning only in its ease. Clijsters has won 18 straight matches at the Open, a streak that leapfrogs her two-year hiatus from the game during which she had a daughter, Jada. Last year’s victory came fresh off that break from the game, when Clijsters was an unseeded wild card.
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This time around, it was Ivanovic who was unseeded, despite being the No. 1 seed just two years ago after she rose to No. 1 in the world. Now, she is ranked No. 40th. Even that represents something of a rebound because she was actually headed in the other direction.
She had hoped, however, to restore some of her luster at this tournament, but could muster nothing against Clijsters.
“I think nerves crept in,” Ivanovic said. “I just felt like, you know, I was on the big stage again. I didn’t have that feeling for a long time. Lots of emotions came back, and I felt just a little slow and just a little bit, you know, out of it. But she played well. I had my opportunities in the beginning that I didn’t convert, so that was a little bit disappointing.”
It has been a frustrating tumble for Ivanovic, who is only 22 and looked like she had the tennis world in the palm of her hand in 2008. She won the French Open and drew legions of fans because of her game and her movie-star looks. But while Ivanovic warmed to the cameras, the pressures that came with them did not sit quite as well. As the freshly crowned No. 1 player, Ivanovic lost in the second round of the Open in 2008 and has not found her footing since.
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