USO Day 1 Review

Rune stumbled out of the Open on day 1. Or perhaps more precisely, Carbelles Baena threw him out.

The upset was on the cards the moment Rune took to twitter to blast US Open schedulers for putting him out on Court 5. The horror. Rune, with his fabulous US Open history (oh, er…) was absolutely entitled to be on one of the four bigger show courts.

Baena had no time for Rune’s drama. In the latter stages, Rune tried to distract him with an MTO, and it seemed to work. Rune broke Baena and seemed into the match, but Baena won three games on the trot to take the third set.

Other seeds to crash were Musetti and Auger-Alliasime.

Musetti led 2-1 before going down to Droguet, a qualifier ranked 117. What can you say? He’s 21 and a half now, old enough to know better.

Auger-Alliasime, aka FAA, went down to Mackenzie Mcdonald. This wasn’t really a shock. FAA has fallen off the last year and this is his third first round slam exit in a row. Mcdonald is a very good player who likes a big match so this one was always dangerous.

Bublik was also upset by Thiem. This one I did find surprising. Bublik seemed to have his head down more and Thiem doesn’t have the muscle and punch that he used to. Bublik was back to his old ways, hardly bothering at times. You will not find Thiem ever giving up and all he had to do was show up and be professional and win his first slam match since the AO ’21.

Seb Korda also went down. To Fucsovics. That’s a tough first rounder. Korda has been so up and down the past couple of years. This one went to five and could have gone either way. Back luck for the 23 year old.

So, with 5 of the 16 seeds out in the top half, the bottom half of the draw is already a little chaotic.

Of the seeds who did win, the most noteworthy victory belonged to Tsitsipas. He beat Raonic in three very convincing sets. He is now the man most likely to stop Djokovic, who cruised through his night match, before the final.