Monday was opening day at the 2017 US Open and while the established players like John Isner, Steve Johnson, and Kevin Anderson picked up wins there were several other former collegians that couldn’t quite get over the hump. One former collegian that did get over the jump was Cameron Norrie as the 3-time All-American from TCU picked up his first main draw grand slam win after his opponent, Dmitry Tursunov, retired before the start of the third set.
Norrie and Tursunov played a break-free first set though each player had multiple opportunities to pull ahead. Tursunov had two break points on Norrie’s opening service game and then another two when Norrie served at 3-4. Norrie had two break points on Tursunov’s 2-2 service game and then another when Tursunov served at 4-4. In the tiebreak the opening two points went to the server then the next four went to the returner which made it 3-3 at the changeover. The server won the next nine points which gave Norrie a set point at 6-5 and 8-7 while Tursunov had a set point at 7-6. Norrie managed to win the 16th point of the tiebreak which gave him the set 7-6(7).
Tursunov broke Norrie to start the second set but it was all Norrie the rest of the way. Norrie won the next six games, which included three love holds, to take the set 6-1. Tursunov, who got his right knee taped at 4-1 in the second set, retired before the start of the third set and that was it. Norrie has now picked up 70 ATP points by qualifying and winning today’s match plus he has banked just over $100K in prize money. Next up for Norrie will be the No. 12 seed Pablo Carreno Busta after the Spaniard defeated former Michigan Wolverine Evan King in straight sets.
The 2017 NCAA singles champion Thai-Son Kwiatkowski was trying to become just the fourth reigning NCAA champ since 1990 to win his opening round at the US Open. Kwiatkowski drew the No. 23 seed Mischa Zverev and the Virginia graduate found himself just a few games away from pulling off the upset in the fourth set but Zverev hung in there and won it in five.
There were no breaks of serve in the opening set, neither faced a break point either, but Kwiatkowski would get the first mini-break in the tiebreak and lead 4-2 at the changeover. Zverev took the next three points to go up 5-4 but Kwiatkowski got it back on serve at 5-5. Zverev managed to take the final two points to claim the tiebreak 7-5.
Kwiatkowski played a dominating second set and after only dropping three points on serve he evened the match up by taking the set 6-4.
Kwiatkowski jumped out to a double break 4-1 lead in the third set and despite giving one of the breaks back he was able to close it out 6-4.
In the fourth set, Kwiatkowski breezed through his first two service games and after he broke Zverev for 3-2 it looked like he might be able to pull it out. However Zverev broke at love and held at love to go in front 4-3 and then he’d break Kwiatkowski once more to win the set 7-5.
The fifth and final set stayed on serve until Zverev broke from 15/40 to go up 5-3. Kwiatkowski had two break points to get it back on serve however Zverev closed it out on his fourth match point to win 7-6, 4-6, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in 3 hours and 28 minutes.
{loadposition ads}
Below are the other results from today along with all the second round matchups for the winners.
Latest Comments