'24 US Open Day 3 Order of Play & Discussion

[mmmm8]

Anybody say the Iva Jovic match? She is only 16 and pushed Alexandrova to 7-5 in the third.
Any scouting on her?

I just watched the last few games, and I watched a little of her first match. OF course, I hope someone will report in who watched more of Jovic.

WITH my obviously limited perspetive....As one would expect of a 16 year old- she will have to develop at least a good serve. Otherwise- excellent ground strokes, and she goes for her shots- good and bad. NOT just a retriever. NO idea of her over-all prospects.

It took Alexandrova 7 match points to "win". Including at least one double fault on a match point, and some ridiculous errors. It would have been awfully hard at the end of that match to determine who was the veteran on the court.

I was there for the last set and pretty much agree. I knew she was young but didn't realize she was only 16 and she didn't play like it, is very composed.

Alexandrova started giving it away, severe trouble closing out. Initially, Jovic was mostly just keeping the ball in plan waiting for Alexandrova to close or make mistakes, but started fighting more as Alexandrova continued to struggle. The crowd was very loud on Jovic's side which didn't seem to affect her. I didn't see any huge weapons from Jovic but it was not the best quality tennis from either, so probably more a nature of the match.

[mmmm8]

The two players whose early-tournament form I believe to be overrated are Fritz and Osaka.

I watched most of Fritz's match against Berrettini, and although Fritz was solid, Berrettini played very poorly and moved worse than he normally does. I'm a Berrettini guy normally and think he is better than he is given credit for, but he apparently cut short his practices the week before the Open, and it showed tonight. He had nothing. Nothing. He made it to a second-set tiebreak on first serve and willpower but never was in any of Fritz's service games, dumped the first six points of the tiebreak and did not compete much in the third set. Fritz will get far too much credit for that scoreline than he deserves.

I did not watch the Osaka-Ostapenko match, but I've seen plenty enough of Ostapenko recently to know that with the exception of Wimbledon, she's been god-awful since May. Pretty much anyone with game would have beaten her is straights. We will find out a lot more about Osaka, who has had a hard time stringing matches together since coming back, when she faces Muchova tomorrow. I can't confidently predict a Muchova win because I have no idea where her head or health are at the moment, but Osaka could lose it.

If Fritz plays Ruud in the fourth round, everyone will pick Fritz even though Ruud has been to a U.S. Open final and Fritz has not been past the quarters of any slam. I see Ruud as a slight favorite in that matchup.

It appears Berrettini also skipped his pre-match pracitce yesterday (a friend wanted to watch him and he never showed up on the practice courts at the scheduled time)