Second serve? I'll take an ace, please

After sitting through a mind-numbingly boring ladies match interrupted by rain delays, all of which ended around 7:30pm, I was ready to call it a night. Exhausted from the day, I had little energy to sit through any more. I then remembered, I'm on the west coast! If a couple of guys can walk onto a court to play their 2nd round US Open match at 10:30 after a long wait, I can certainly watch. Besides, it was Roddick and Gulbis. A contest of strength was about to commence and should be over very soon: Roddick with much more experience as the obvious victor (though not at all a personal favourite). Such a game has no appeal as the idea of thrashing a ball around the tennis court is impish at best, so I wouldn't even feel guilty falling asleep in front of it. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening.

As predicted, these boys came to hit. But it was not as tiresome as I had expected. Gulbis got off to a famous start, breaking Andy in the second game and went up quickly to 3-0. The young Latvian, who apparently has learned to take fewer risks, was routinely throwing in second services aces and generating a 120-miles per hour pace off his groundstrokes. I'd love to see a match where he leaves all inhibitions behind; his opponent would never see the ball pass him by. He held the rest of the set to win it 6-3 in just 29 minutes.

Ernests continued this grand display and broke Roddick to go up 4-3 in the second set with a beautiful forehand fired cross-court. Roddick was clearly irritated as he had yet to find his game. Immediately after being broken, Andy let his own forehand sail wide and promptly punished his racquet, breaking its frame on the concrete.

While the flashy moments were not over for Gulbis, he could not prevent the starving American from turning his frustration into gold. Roddick finally broke Gulbis in the 10th game of the second set and went on to break him again to win 7-5. Andy was then on a roll, throwing in his own slew of second service aces and finding lines and corners for winners. He gained early and late breaks to win the third set 6-2. Gulbis, who had very effectively used drop shots and volleys all night, pulled out these weapons even more aggressively, but alas it was not enough and finally lost his serve to lose the fourth, and final, set 5-7.

What made this night bittersweet though was that both men shared a birthday. August 30th. When the clock struck midnight, both grew one year older (Roddick 26 and Gulbis 20) and they were within the exact middle of their match. This is the stupidity of the Open - it is completely dictated by the broadcasting networks. They try to cover it up by saying that a different energy is brought when playing under the lights, but they really just care about higher viewer numbers. No respect is shown for the players as well as, arguably, unfair advantages given to those who go out earlier in the day and so have a longer time to rest and recoup for the next match. Regardless, Andy Roddick was pleased that when they went into the next day he started "playing like a 26-year-old." Next, Andy will face Italian Andreas Seppi during a normal day-match on Sunday. Hopefully he won't be blinded by the sight of natural sunlight.