Men’s tennis champions Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have overcome some second-round wobbles to progress at the US Open in New York.
Top-ranked Nadal came back from a set and a break down to beat Japan’s Taro Daniel 4-6 6-3 6-2 6-2 and reach the third round.
Federer set aside an uncharacteristic 68 unforced errors and what appeared to be a bad back to pull out his second five-set victory in a row at the US Open, edging Mikhail Youzhny 1-6 7-6 (7-3) 6-4 4-6 6-2.
It is the first time in his long career that the 36-year-old Federer has played five-setters in both the first and second rounds at a grand slam tournament.
“These five-set battles are actually quite a lot of fun,” Federer said in his on-court interview in Arthur Ashe Stadium, “and I feel quite warmed up by now.”
Federer will next play Spain’s Feliciano Lopez.
It took Nadal a little while to figure out Daniel, who is ranked 120 spots lower and often plays on the lower-level Challenger tour. Daniel has never been past the second round at a major tournament.
Daniel was better in the opening set on Thursday night and went ahead 2-1 in the second. But Nadal finally converted a break point on his sixth try of the match in the next game to get to 2-all and began to calibrate his big forehand better.
Nadal has won his past 11 second-round matches at Flushing Meadows after losing in first two appearances at that stage back in 2003 and 2004.
Nadal next plays 59th-ranked Leonardo Mayer next.
Earlier in the men’s draw on Thursday, Grigor Dimitrov became another high-profile tournament fancy to crash out at Flushing Meadows, as he lost 7-5 7-6 (7-3) 6-3 to Russian 19-year-old Andrey Rublev.
Rublev, who next meets unseeded Bosnian Damir Dzumhur, joins Denis Shapovalov in round three, making it the first time since 2008 that two male teenagers have reached this stage at Flushing Meadows.
Former champion Juan Martin del Potro beat Adrian Menendez in straight sets to advance to the third round while Alexandr Dolgopolov eliminated 15th seed and 2010 Wimbledon finalist Tomas Berdych.
Damir Dzumhur and Viktor Troicki also kept their campaigns alive.