Fourth seed ousts ljubicic 6-3, 6-1, 6-3; seventh seed frenchman has it easy against US wildcard
Fourth seed ousts ljubicic 6-3, 6-1, 6-3; seventh seed frenchman has it easy against US wildcard The men's singles formbook continued to be strictly respected at the US Open yesterday with fourth seed Novak Djokovic and seventh seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga both cruising into the second round.
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World No 4 Novak Djokovic (left) returns to Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic during their US Open Round One tie yesterday. pics/afp |
There were straight-sets wins too for 10th seed Fernando Verdasco, 11th seed Fernando Gonzalez and for 17th seed Thomas Berdych as, for once, most of the day's drama was being played out in the women's tournament.
Djokovic, the fourth-seeded Serb, who lost to Roger Federer in the 2007 final here, was too powerful for a fading Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia, winning at a canter 6-3, 6-1, 6-3.
The 2008 Australian Open champion revealed afterward that he had reached an agreement with retired American player Todd Martin to join his coaching team for Flushing Meadows. "We had a lot of hours on the court trying hard to improve my game so Todd, being a former top five player and in a couple of Grand Slam finals and brought freshness to our team and things are functioning quite well."
Tsonga was even more expedient, defeating American wildcard Chase Buchanan 6-0, 6-2, 6-1.
The 24-year-old Frenchman, runner-up to Djokovic in the 2008 Australian Open, wrapped up the first set in just 23 minutes and it was the second game of the set before Buchanan opened his account by holding serve.
That was but a brief respite for the home player though as Tsonga powered away again losing just two more games as he went through in 78 minutes.
