Denis gets taste of us nightlife
Canadian teenager Denis Shapovalov got a little taste of late-night life at the US Open along the way to knocking off No 8-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. During the 69th-ranked Shapovalov's 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (3) victory under the lights in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday night that put him in the third round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time, the 18-year-old qualifier said he chatted a bit with some, um, overzealous spectators. "I noticed a couple of guys had a little bit too much to drink. I mean, some of them were standing and, like, just talking to me as if we're buddies. I was up a break in one game, I think it was probably 40-15, I just miss a backhand. (One fan is) like, 'Aaaaah. No!' I'm like, 'Don't worry, man. I got this,'" Shapovalov recounted with a smile. "I mean, I was just taking it all in," he continued. "like I said, it's a dream come true to play a night match over here on Arthur Ashe. So for me, it was fun. Obviously it's not easy to play under these conditions. But I managed to put a positive spin on it."
Kiick overcomes cancer, not nerves
After the battle with cancer and the four knee surgeries, Allie Kiick finally came up against something she couldn't overcome. Playing in the main draw at the US Open and facing a ranked opponent on the Grandstand, Kiick — the 22-year-old daughter of former NFl star Jim Kiick — wanted badly to show she belonged, that she could summon her best tennis just like she would have before she was sidelined for so long. But it didn't happen, and Kiick lost 6-2, 6-1 to Daria Gavrilova in the first round. "I'm super competitive, so no matter who you put me up against, I want to win and I expect to win. Doesn't matter that I've only been back four months, I played against the 25th seed or I don't even know what she was seeded, but I expected to win, so it hurts." She's dealt with far worse pain. There's been two surgeries on each knee, with the two major ones both coming in 2016. Kiick was recovering from one of her knee injuries in 2015 when she announced that she had a rare form of the skin cancer melanoma, and she ended up missing more than two years of action.
Bouchard ‘surprised' to play in open
Even Eugenie Bouchard did not expect to find herself playing a US Open match in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday. The 23-year-old Canadian is, after all, still a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the US Tennis Association stemming from a fall at the facility during the tournament two years ago. Hers is no longer a marquee name in the sport, attached to a losing record this season and a No 76 ranking, far removed from the days when Bouchard was a Wimbledon finalist and top-10 player in 2014.n"I was surprised, yeah," she said about the court assignment, "but it's always an amazing opportunity to play on the biggest tennis court in the world." Asked about the choice to put Bouchard vs. Rodina in the tournament's main arena, USTA spokesman Chris Widmaier said: "A lot of factors go into scheduling. ... (Bouchard) was scheduled to be first on Ashe, and we're comfortable with that decision." Bouchard certainly did not seem very at ease — with a racket in her hand or with a microphone in front of her. At Flushing Meadows in 2015, Bouchard got a concussion from a fall and withdrew before her fourth-round match, then missed most of the rest of the season. She filed suit against the USTA in US District Court in Brooklyn that year, then showed up at the 2016 U.S. Open and lost in the first round.