US Open: An ex-champion continues – Wawrinka cleans Dimitrov

As in Wimbledon, Stan Wawrinka won round one against Grigor Dimitrov. Another ex-champion, Andy Murray, had to fight hard against James Duckworth.

By Jens Huiber from New York City

It is not known what Stan Wawrinka did on Friday at about eleven o’clock local time. Stretching would have been a possibility, after all the three-time major winner had arranged a training session with fellow countryman Roger Federer at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Andy Murray was on the podium at the new Louis Armstrong Stadium at the time and answered questions for the international press.

Wawrinka and Murray, that should have been the two big comeback stories in summer 2018, at least the Swiss has already indicated during his appearances in Cincinnati and Toronto that he is to be reckoned with. Murray played a legendary night session against Marius Copil in Washington, but the Scotsman did not rate it legendary until three o’clock in the morning.

So Wawrinka opened at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Murray played the first men’s game in the new Louis Armstrong. Grigor Dimitrov and James Duckworth completed the quartet, the Bulgarian can’t complain about excessive luck of the draw, already in Wimbledon he had to start immediately against Wawrinka. And lost.

The Swiss was in a righteous hurry, was already leading 6:3 and 6:2 against Dimitrov, when Murray was still struggling with the Australian in the tiebreak. Murray made up for a 3-0 deficit, but lost the short decision with a backhand slice ball that was too long.

The matches couldn’t have been much fun for any of the players, the summer heat was hard on the opening day of the 2018 US Open, and Wawrinka was treated at the beginning of the third set, a precautionary measure. Nevertheless, Dimitrov took the lead with a break, could not escape at 5:3. After that, Wawrinka did not want to play any longer and closed the bag with another break and a sovereign service game to 7:5.

After all: At this point Murray had managed to equal the sets and regained self-confidence. But he had to work much harder than Wawrinka against a supposedly much weaker opponent.

An ex-champion is one round further, a fourth meeting in New York after 2008, 2010 and 2013 (Wawrinka leads in the US-Open-balance against Murray with 2:1 wins) is unlikely: The double gold medal winner at Olympic Games would probably have to say goodbye to Juan Martin del Potro, Wawrinka has after the coup against Dimitrov für´s First at least something like a free track. But that didn’t help him in Wimbledon – already in round two Thomas Fabbiano was too strong for the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

Here is the men’s single tableau at the US Open 2018