{"id":3352,"date":"2017-08-31T11:35:21","date_gmt":"2017-08-31T11:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/punjabnews24.com\/?p=3352"},"modified":"2017-08-31T11:35:21","modified_gmt":"2017-08-31T11:35:21","slug":"federer-survives-scare-rafa-ruthless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/federer-survives-scare-rafa-ruthless\/","title":{"rendered":"Federer survives scare, Rafa ruthless"},"content":{"rendered":"

Federer comes through in a five-setter against teenager Tiafoe; Nadal shakes off opening-set rust to win<\/strong><\/p>\n

NEW YORK,
\nWorld No. 3 Roger Federer survived a first-round scare from Frances Tiafoe before grinding out a 4-6 6-2 6-1 1-6 6-4 victory over the American teenager in front of a raucous crowd at the US Open on Tuesday. Federer looked more relieved than overjoyed when Tiafoe\u2019s forehand found the net on match point to keep his hopes of a 20th Grand Slam title alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a good fight,\u201d Federer said in an on-court interview. \u201cIt was exciting and this is why I came to New York, to go through these emotions,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old Tiafoe broke Federer in the first game of the match and bellowed out a loud \u201cCome on!\u201d when his forehand winner found the line to capture the opening set. Federer soon found his groove once he broke Tiafoe to take a 3-1 lead in the second set and reeled off nine of the next 10 games.<\/p>\n

However, his poor form returned in a 23-minute fourth set when his serve and the accuracy of his trusty one-handed backhand completely deserted him. Federer said Tiafoe could go on to have a big career. \u201cHe is a great player and has a bright future,\u201d Federer said.<\/p>\n

Despite coming away with the win, the shaky performance raises questions about the health of the 36-year-old Swiss, who sat out the Cincinnati Masters earlier this month with back pain.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that he was worried about his back going into the match but said he felt \u201cmuch, much better\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis win will give me a lot of confidence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nadal turns up the heat<\/p>\n

World No. 1 Rafa Nadal dismissed Dusan Lajovic 7-6 (6) 6-2 6-2 to ease into the second round. \u201cToday I won. That\u2019s the most important thing for me,\u201d Nadal said.<\/p>\n

After a sluggish run-up to the US Open that included a shock Round of 16 loss to Canadian teenager Denis Shapovalov in Montreal and another to Australian Nick Kyrgios in the Cincinnati quarterfinals, Nadal needed a few games to find his range against the 85th-ranked Serb.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old, chasing a first US Open win, showed no sign of nerves, using his stylish groundstrokes to grab the early break on the way to 4-2 lead. But a steely Nadal found his comfort zone, breaking back at 5-5 to force the opener to a tiebreak that he took 8-6.<\/p>\n

A ruthless Nadal delivered the young Serb another tennis lesson, breaking his opponent at the first opportunity in the second and third sets to improve his record in first round US Open matches to 13-0. \u201cTough beginning of the match,\u201d said Nadal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe important thing is to win because it is normal that you have some nerves at the beginning and you get a little bit tight at the beginning of the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Federer comes through in a five-setter against teenager Tiafoe; Nadal shakes off opening-set rust to win NEW YORK, World No. 3 Roger Federer survived a first-round scare from Frances Tiafoe before grinding out a 4-6 6-2 6-1 1-6 6-4 victory over the American teenager in front of a raucous crowd at the US Open on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3354,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3352\/revisions\/3354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}