US Open Betting / Sean Calvert / 01 September 2008 /

Sean Calvert did his best to attempt to dodge heatstroke and unsympathetic jobsworths to give us the lowdown on day seven at Flushing Meadows which included Roger Federer breezing past Stepanek and Robredo knocking out the ever-dangerous Tsonga.

Day Seven at the US Open and if I thought yesterday was hot I had clearly experienced nothing as the mercury rose to 90 degrees in New York on Sunday.

Unlike the Australian Open there is no official temperature gauge at the Billie Jean King Tennis Centre, but having been in Melbourne during a heat break, in which the dial has to reach 100 degrees, I would suggest that it was close to that as both players and fans alike wilted.

I knew I was in trouble as soon as I arrived on Armstrong to watch Nikolay Davydenko take on countryman Dmitry Tursunov when it became apparent that there was just one area of seating beneath the floodlights at the back that offered any protection from the searing heat.

I made a beeline for it and was able to claim one and experience the opening stages of the match in relative comfort.

Having had a small wager on the match lasting less than 38 games, I was pleased to see the number five seed outplay his compatriot early on and confident of a result I switched to Ashe as the sun was beginning to peek through the shadows.

I'd had a similar bet on the opening match on Ashe, which was Caroline Wozniacki against Jelena Jankovic and I was just able to ascertain that the match had gone into a third set before I was ejected from an unauthorised shaded viewing area by a relatively sympathetic jobsworth.

On Grandstand, which is the only show court offering a shaded area, Nicolas Almagro managed to become the second player after Tommy Haas to blow a two set lead over Gilles Muller, as the Spaniard went down 7-5 in the decider.

I had no chance of getting a seat for that one and it was time instead to go back to Ashe and suffer the mid-day heat for Roger Federer v Radek Stepanek.

Fed was in no mood to hang around and despite the usual energetic efforts of Stepanek, the defending champion was rarely in any kind of trouble as he eased to a straight sets win.

The effort of sitting in that furnace had got the better of me and I had to go and have a lie down in the shaded grassy area adjacent to Armstrong instead of attempting to give myself heatstroke watching Fernando Verdasco v Igor Andreev on Grandstand. It got to Verdasco too as he limped to a straight sets defeat... and they were playing in the shade.

A regular and somewhat annoying occurrence takes place at Flushing Meadows at around 6pm each day and that is that hordes of people arrive for the night session and combine with those staying on from the day session. Consequently it's impossible to get a seat on either Armstrong or Grandstand for about an hour.

So, instead of scrimmaging with countless others in the heat for Tommy Robredo v Jo Wilfried Tsonga, I opted for a the calm serenity of Court 8 where a small crowd had gathered for a match involving the number one seed in the Girls Singles, Arantxa Rus.

The tall Dutch girl was up against the smaller Russian Victoria Kamenskaya and in the hope of watching a potential future champ I hung around for a while.

It was long enough to watch the top seed suffer a straight sets beating and on the evidence of today, she possesses neither the ability nor the temperament to make it big.

Soon enough, one of my favourites took to the court on Grandstand and I spent a thoroughly enjoyable hour watching Fernando Gonzalez run through his repertoire of huge shots during the early stages of his four set success over Jarko Nieminen.

Gonzalez received a warm welcome and great support from the New York crowd apart from the odd discontenting voice shouting 'cheat' at him, no doubt in reference to the Olympic incident with local favourite James Blake.

Nieminen as ever turned up in his football player gear and he could easily be mistaken for one in those trainers and rolled down Steve Claridge-esque socks that he always sports.

The Finn angered the pro-Gonzalez contingent at the end of the first when he took a swipe at the service speed indicator following a missed forehand, but the anger failed to inspire him and I headed to Ashe for Novak Djokovic v Marin Cilic.

The first set was hard-hitting stuff as you would expect from a Croatia v Serbia clash and Cilic was giving as good as he got from last year's finalist.

It went to a breaker and Cilic, who is surely the oldest looking 19-year-old in world tennis took it 9-7 with a scintillating pass down the line.

With time against me and patience running thin with the razzmatazz and banal screaming from the 'fans' on Ashe I called it a night at that point as this match looked like it could go long. In fact as I write it's 2-1 Djokovic and 5-5 in the fourth, so I may be proven correct on that one.

With the forecast for the Labor Day holiday predicting another scorcher, I'm limiting myself to Monday's later games, which will include Andy Murray v Stanislas Wawrinka on Ashe and Kei Nishikori v Juan Martin Del Potro on Armstrong.

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