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Key events
Boyer can only take so much; you can’t allow a player of Rublev’s class four breaking opportunities and expect him not to take one of them, and that’s exactly what he does. A swift hold follows, the lead now 6-3 2-1.
Goffin has broken back against Musetti and they’re now 4-4 in set one. On Grandstand, Rublev is giving Boyer all he can handle, forcing break points that he can’t quite convert. Oh, and Swiatek survives break point to lead Lamens 3-0, I don’t imagine this match will detain us all that long.
Also a set up are Sakkari, 6-3 against Bondar; Alexandrova, 6-2 1-1 against Wang; and Kalinskaya, 6-1 1-1 against Putitnseva. Meanwhile, Swiatek breaks Lamens for 2-0, already looking monstrous; it’ll take something significant to beat her here, but both Gauff, her potential semi-final opponent, and Sabalenka, the defending champ and no 1 seed, are capable of that.
Rublev takes his eye off the ball and, against a player who didn’t look able to hurt him in set one, is broken at the start of two having made careless unforced errors. If Boyer can consolidate, he’s in business.
Elsewhere, Haddad Maia has taken the first set 6-1 against Golubic. She’s one I thought and hoped might go on – she’s got such easy, lefty power, so I wondered whether she might hit a seam at the right time and beat players ranked above her. At 29, though, that looks unlikely.
While I was moving Rublev to said phone, he sneakily served out a 6-3 first set. I’d love to see him do well here: I’m reliably informed he’s a really good lad and his on-court struggles have been hard to watch. It must be extremely frustrating to find that, having hit a certain level, you don’t seem able to improve, and hope he can find a way of being kinder to himself.
On Ashe, Swiatek and Lamens are almost ready. As such, I’ve got that on my main screen and Boyer v Rublev on my second. Sadly, there’s no prospect of three and four as I can’t get at the streamed courts on anything but my phone.
Other hand, Andy Murray once revealed that, in the aftermath of losing the 2012 Wimbledon final to Roger Federer, he began processing the realisation that he may never win a slam. A few months later, he was Olympic champion, and a few months later still, he was US Open champion.
Originally, I misread the order of play and thought Zverev v Fearnley was today, not tonight. It could be a helluva match, that one – will Zverev ever recover from his major-final collapses and pummellings? He looked broken at the end of this year’s Aussie Open and, though that was, of course, in the moment, my sense is he no longer believes he can win one.
On the main Sky channel, we’ve got Boyer v Rublev – the no 15 seed leads 32 with a break – and on my phone, I’m going to start with Musetti v Goffin, Musettti up 2-0, but we’ll see how it goes.
Preamble
Yes yes y’all and welcome to the US Open 2025 – day five!
We begin today with a variety of intriguing matchups. Lorenzo Musetti meets David Goffin, Stefanos Tsitsipas takes on the dangerous Daniel Altmaier and Beatriz Haddad Maia, whose powerful aggression has long been a favourite of this blog, faces Viktorija Golubic. Oh yeah, and Iga Swiatek, tennis’ form and most frighteningly focused player, addresses Suzan Lamens.
Franky, that’s enough for an entire session, but there’s so, so much more. Andrey Rublev is also involved in the first tranche of matches, after which Jannik Sinner, the defending champ, gets going again, Alexei Popyrin a properly dangerous opponent.
My potential match of the day, though, comes on Armstrong, where Hailey Baptiste will have a go at Naomi Osaka,and I’m also excited to see Sorana Cirsrtea try to upset another favourite, Karolina Muchova. Add to that Amanda Anisimova v Maya Joint, plus appearances from Daria Kasatkina, Alex De Minaur, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Maria Sakkari, Denis Shapovalov and Karen Khachanov, and we’re all set for another burst of joy and love exactly when we need it most.
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