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Blake's Open Run Ends In 5 Sets

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By HOWARD FENDRICH, The Associated Press

Published: September 4, 2007

NEW YORK - James Blake certainly had his chances to avoid another fifth-set disappointment.

Seven times, the Tampa resident was two points away from victory Monday at the U.S. Open.

Three times, he was a single point away.

Blake failed to convert all three of those match points, then played about as poorly as he did all day in the final-set tiebreaker and lost 4-6, 6-4, 3-6, 6-0, 7-6 (4) to No. 10 Tommy Haas in the fourth round.

'I was a little indecisive at the end there,' said Blake, who was 0-9 in five-setters until finally winning one in the second round last week. 'Did come down to one or two points there. It's frustrating I didn't win them this time.'

The match ended a tad oddly, with a raucous, pro-Blake crowd hushed during instant-replay challenges on each of the final two points. While waiting for the final replay - which showed that Haas' 113 mph ace was, indeed, in - the players smiled sheepishly at each other and approached the net for a handshake they knew was coming.

'I'm not going to celebrate like crazy right in front of him,' Haas said.

Blake's defeat means this is the first U.S. Open since 1998 that there won't be at least two American men in the quarterfinals.
Andy Roddick is the host country's last representative in the final eight, and he figures the easy part of his tournament is over. And, boy, has it been easy so far.

The 2003 champion strolled into the quarterfinals when No. 9-seeded Tomas Berdych stopped playing early in the second set because he was having trouble breathing, meaning two of Roddick's four foes at Flushing Meadows have quit on him.

And both of Roddick's matches that were completed, against men ranked 475th and 68th, were over in three sets.

Now things get interesting - and a lot more daunting - for the No. 5-seeded American: No. 1 Roger Federer will be his next opponent after Federer rallied to beat Feliciano Lopez in Monday night's last match.

Federer lost the first set to the Spanish lefty, barely won the second, then trailed love-40 to start the third.

And then Federer did the sort of remarkable thing that only Federer does: He won the next 35 points he served.

Answering every question Lopez posed with an exclamation point, Federer took control of the third set and the match, coming back to win 3-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-4.

Worried they couldn't expect much interest in the two low-wattage women's quarterfinals coming Wednesday - 2004 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova against 18-year-old Agnes Szavay of Hungary, and No. 6 Anna Chakvetadze against No. 18 Shahar Peer - U.S. Open officials changed things up. With both players' approval, they shifted the quarterfinal between six-time major champion Venus Williams and No. 3 Jelena Jankovic from today to Wednesday night.

Kuznetsova beat Victoria Azarenka 6-2, 6-3, Szavay defeated Julia Vakulenko 6-4, 7-6 (1), Chakvetadze beat 16-year-old Tamira Paszek 6-1, 7-5, and Peer became the first Israeli woman to reach the U.S. Open quarterfinals by eliminating No. 30 Agnieszka Radwanska, 6-4, 6-1.

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