adminVENUS Williams is going to have a lot more time to prepare for her upcoming tournaments in Asia than she really wanted, thanks to one of Asia’s top players. China’s Zheng Jie advanced to the third round of the US Open on Wednesday by outlasting seven-time Grand Slam champion Williams 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (7/5) after three hours and two minutes.
“Today is tough match for me,” Zheng said. “Unbelievable I can beat her.”
Deadlocked 5-5 in the tie-breaker, 60th-ranked Williams sent a backhand volley into the net to give 56th-ranked Zheng her first match-point chance. When Williams sent a backhand wide, Zheng jumped for joy in triumph.
Meanwhile, defending champion Andy Murray put on a US Open late on Wednesday night special, taking out his frustrations with the chaos-causing rain and event schedulers but two-time winner Venus Williams slipped to defeat.
Third-seeded Murray, who snapped Britain’s 76-year wait for a men’s Grand Slam champion when he triumphed in New York last year, needed just 98 minutes to get past 33-year-old Frenchman Michael Llodra, 6-2, 6-4, 6-3.
But his match only got underway at 03:55 – the third-latest start for a US Open night session- after a four-hour rain suspension earlier in the day.
That delay was compounded when 2009 champion Juan Martin del Potro and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez battled out a four-hour, 13-minute dogfight on the same Arthur Ashe Stadium, which the Argentine sixth seed won 6-7 (5/7), 6-4, 7-6 (9/7).
Amongst Murray’s leading rivals for the title, Rafael Nadal completed his first round match on Monday, 48 hours earlier, while top seed Novak Djokovic and five-time winner Roger Federer both wrapped up their openers on Tuesday.-Sport24.
Online Reporter