DAY 2 REVIEW AND DAY 3 PREVIEW

by Karen 

While Day 1 of the US Open was filled with drama with seeds on the women’s side falling like House Greyjoy, on day 2 the most drama that was provided was with Victoria Azarenka querying whether an umpire had played tennis and concluding that even if she did she was probably not very good at it.  I suspect that the charm offensive that had been a part of Azarenka’s persona (and which this writer took exception) has now gone out the window.  It is great to see.  The WTA Tour needs someone with edge and Azarenka provides it like no other.

At the time of writing Simona Halep, the No. 2 seed (and without the possibility of facing her nemesis Lucic-Baroni) was clinical today in her match against Erakovic, who subsequently retired, trailing 3-0 in the second set. 

Day  3 sees the top half of the draw play and below are the match schedules and Spin’s picks

Court Assignment	Players
Arthur Ashe	Keys v. Smitkova
	Williams (S) v. Bertens
	Williams (V) v. Falconi
Grandstand	Brengle v. Tatishvilli
	Bouchard v. Hercog
Louis Armstrong	Mattek-Sands v. Candeweghe
Court 5	Pavlyuchenkova v. Kontaveit
	Pegula v. Cibulkova
Court 6	Kasatkina v. Konjuh
Court 7	Svitolina v. Kanepi
Court 11	Allertova v. Vinci
	Bencic v. Doi
Court 13	Jovanovski v. Mladenovic
	Duque-Marino v. Dodin
Court 17	Linette v. Radwanska
	Davis v. Makarova

Spin Quick Hits 

• Chris Evert should not opine on the Vekic/Wawrinka kerfluffle.  She has a personal interest in this and as such her opinions, while they may be valid, are not coming from a place of objectivity.  
• Interviewing a tennis player in the middle of a match is a no-no.  It brings nothing of substance to the sport.  The World No. 1 had this to say when questioned:

Q.  I don't know if you heard, but CoCo did an on-court interview in the middle of her match after the first set. Did you hear that?

SERENA WILLIAMS: Yes.

Q. Would you ever think about doing that or trying it?

SERENA WILLIAMS: Being a vintage player from Lord knows what decade -- and I'm old school, so I don't know if I can say that's something I would do, per se -- but I found it quite interesting.

Maybe that's the future of tennis, the future of where it's going. You know, hopefully they don't make that mandatory. So we'll see.

Q. What do you think the pros and cons of it would be?

SERENA WILLIAMS: I think it's great for some viewers. Get in the mind of the athletes. But I also think it -- you know, for me, I'm really focused the whole time. I'm really trying to think about what I want to do. I don't necessarily want to answer questions about anything. I just want to be in that moment and kind of focused. That's kind of the integrity of tennis when you think about it. It's just you on the court. It's not a reporter. It's not a coach. It's just you in that moment. I kind of love that. It's the only sport where you have that [emphasis added].

This is why Serena Williams is ranked World's No. 1 and creating history one day at a time and Coco is Coco. 

• Caroline Wozniacki needs to stop crashing the press conferences of her colleagues.