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Federer Out-tricks Magician Santoro at US Open

Roger Federer had solved the slice-and-dice problem of French magician Fabrice Santoro since ascending to the No. 1 ranking, but the ghosts of losses-past came back to haunt the Swiss Friday night as he was forced to fight to edge the two-hander 7-5, 7-5, 7-6(2) to advance into the third round at the US Open.

Santoro's shot-making had Federer cursing at points, especially after he saw a 5-1 lead disappear before securing the first set 7-5.

Afterwards though the Swiss admitted the match wasn't just entertaining to watch.

"I had a blast out there today," Federer said. "Rarely the crowd gets into a match like they did tonight. The way he plays, the way I play, I knew it could be a great one...it was quite windy and it was tough to get it past him, particularly when he was coming to the net."

Santoro said he gave it his all, overcoming some early nerves.

"I can't play any better than I did tonight," Santoro said. "I was a little nervous before the match because if you play even a little under your level against Roger then it's over in an hour."

Other seeded winners Friday were (3) Lleyton Hewitt (d. Acasuso), (11) David Nalbandian (d. Wessels in four), (15) Dominik Hrbaty (d. Lammer), (17) David Ferrer (d. Kucera, bagel in the second), (21) Fernando Gonzalez (d. Tursunov in four), (25) Taylor Dent (d. Almagro in four), and (27) Olivier Rochus (d. Montanes in four).

"He's a tough competitor out there," Hewitt said after his first meeting with Acasuso. "He's got a lot of flashy shots and a lot of weapons out there. I'd never hit a ball against him, so it took me a while to get in and read his game a little bit...I thought he'd make a lot more errors than he did."

Dent dropped 17 aces on Almagro to set up a third-round meeting with his nemesis Hewitt.

"I'm feeling good, you know. I'm not looking forward to my ice bath later, but good right now," Dent said after the match, explaining his ritual. "Just good for the legs, good for me. It helps my legs recover, so just do it every night. It's just to get the legs fresh and make sure I'm covering all the bases."

Dent has lost to Hewitt in four of their five career meetings, most recently in four sets this year at Wimbledon.

Four seeds also made exits Friday, with upsets orchestrated by Thai Paradorn Srichaphan (d. (6) Davydenko), hot-handed German Nicolas Kiefer (d. (16) Stepanek from 0-2 sets down), Serb teen Novak Djokovic (d. (22) Ancic in four), and Italian veteran Davide Sanguinetti (d. (31) Moya in four).

Srichaphan, who entered the US Open with a 21-25 record on the year, provided the largest upset of the day over Davydenko, a much-needed jolt for the former Top 10-ranked Thai who has suffered 11 first-round losses this year.

"To win today I think is give me a lot of confidence that I still can do well like a couple years ago," Srichaphan said. "And (I) still believe that I can make it back to Top 20."

Other unseeded winners into the third round were Arnaud Clement (d. Murray 6-0 in the fifth), Spaniard Fernando Verdasco (d. Capdeville), Belarus' Max Mirnyi (d. Serra in four), and Fin Jarkko Nieminen (d. Phau in four).

Murray succumbed to cramps with his second consecutive five-setter.

On tap for Saturday are (2) Nadal vs. Blake, (7) Agassi vs. (32) Berdych, (29) Haas vs. Ginepri, (13) Gasquet vs. (18) Ljubicic, (19) Robredo vs. Grosjean, (8) Coria vs. Soderling, Massu vs. Wawrinka, and (24) Youzhny vs. Xavier "X-Man" Malisse.

"I've got to beat Rafael Nadal, which is not an easy task at all," Blake said on facing Nadal. "I think before this hardcourt season, a lot of people would have considered he's just a claycourt specialist, so he's probably not a favorite to win the Open. But then what he did in Montreal was incredibly impressive, especially from what I heard I wasn't there but those courts were also pretty quick. So for him to go through that draw, also beating a legend like Andre Agassi in the finals on pretty quick courts, is very impressive. It makes him, in my mind, one of the favorites to win this. So I got to worry about that."

Doubles highlights abound Saturday in Spaniards Feliciano "F-Lo" Lopez/Fernando "Hot Sauce" Verdasco vs. Americans Kuznetsova/Oudesma in an all-unseeded, Israel's (11) Erlich/Ram vs. Romanians Hanescu/Sabau, Argentines Acasuso/Prieto vs. Americans Goldstein/Thomas in an all-unseeded, (1) Bjorkman/Max "The Beast" Mirnyi vs. Americans Jenkins/Reynolds, Aussies (8) Arthurs/Hanley vs. Slovaks Dominik "The Dominator" Hrbaty/Mertinak, and (7) Bhupathi/Damm vs. Croatians Ancic/Ljubicic.

Sharapova Wins, Williams Sisters to Meet at US Open

Top-seeded Maria Sharapova cruised into the fourth round Friday at the US Open, defeating German Julia Schruff 6-2, 6-4 as the seeds continued to barely break a sweat in the early goings.

"I was moving quite well in the first set and then second set I felt a little sloppy," Sharapova said. "You know, played a sloppy game at 4-2 serving with the wind, made a few easy errors. But other than that, came back strong. She hits pretty flat, so it was a little different compared to the other opponents I played in previous matches."

Other seeded winners Friday were (4) Kim Clijsters (d. (30) Sugiyama), (8) Serena Williams (d. (25) Schiavone), (9) Nadia Petrova (d. Granville), (10) Venus Williams (d. Hantuchova), and (26) Nicole Vaidisova (d. Lisjak).

Wins by Serena and Venus Williams Friday will now pit the sisters against one another in the fourth round.

"Every single point will be (important)," Venus said. "More than anything I'll just have to compete better. I got a lot of tricks from Serena just watching her. She inspired me so many times. I got motivated by her in the early part of my career, and even now."

Venus beat Serena in their last meeting earlier this year in Miami.

"It's obviously extremely disappointing to have to play my sister in the next round," Serena said. "But I can't tell you the disappointment. Hopefully one of us will be in the quarters and we'll just have to go from there."

Unseeded Indian media darling Sania Mirza defeated Marion Bartoli in straight sets to set up the most anticipated match on the women's side thus far, a meeting with top seed Maria Sharapova, likely a featured night match on Arthur Ashe stadium.

"It will be one of the biggest matches of my career," said Mirza on facing the Russian "global icon." "You know, I think I played Wimbledon Centre Court. It's definitely going to be one of the biggest matches in my career, but hopefully I'll have the crowd there again. I mean, it's great. It's the biggest stadium in, you know, in all the Grand Slams, so I'm actually very excited."

Venezuela's Maria Vento-Kabchi also moved into the fourth round with a three-set win over Israel's Shahar Peer.

Scheduled for Saturday are (7) Henin-Hardenne vs. Cho, (2) Davenport vs. (32) Medina Garrigues, (15) Dechy vs. (23) Tatiana "Hot Pants" Golovin, (3) Mauresmo vs. (31) Groenefeld, (6) Dementieva vs. (29) Chakvetadze in an all-Russian, (11) Schnyder vs. (24) Asagoe, (12) Pierce vs. (17) Jankovic, and (13) Myskina vs. (19) Likhovtseva in an all-Russian.

NEWS, NOTES, QUOTES AND BARBS
Peter Bodo answering viewer mail for the TennisWorld blog: "Todd Rich, a regular reader from Ohio, writes: 'Here's a politically incorrect question for you. How much does Serena Williams weigh? She's listed at 143, but my wife claimed that she looked at least 180 on TV last night. She looks terrible. If she doesn't lose (weight) soon, she's going to seriously injure herself.' Well, Todd, that's a tough one to answer as I haven't weighed Serena recently, but your letter does raise an interesting point, which is the accuracy of the WTA media guide and other "official" publications or player guides. It's long been a favorite pastime in some quarters to take the WTA media guide and parse it for those little, well, apparent inaccuracies that sometimes pop up. Serena isn't exactly breaking new ground here." But she could be breaking those stretch pants she's so fond of wearing...James Blake says coming off the win in New Haven and some added mental maturity are making for the best run of his career: "Coming from a win, such a high, in your home state, around all your friends, to come here two days later and beat a Top 30 player in straight sets, I don't think I would have been mature enough to do that a couple of years ago. I would have gotten ahead of myself, if I get up an early break, or gotten down on myself after any kind of bad call or something. Just though, you know, 'I don't need this. I just won a tournament.' Now I'm just looking at winning every point, trying to do that, and kind of micromanaging out there. It's working out right now, and I think it's helping to make it so I can go on these kind of runs."...Lindsay Davenport on all the early-round blowouts and lack of interesting early-round women's matches at the US Open: "That changed drastically when they started seeding 32 a few years ago. You used to have a lot more unknown or really tough battles in the first few rounds because obviously you had a chance to play someone ranked 17 through 32. I think that took away a lot of it, especially on the women's side. While we are getting more depth, if you go outside the Top 40 or 50, there's not tons and tons of girls that are really challenging the top players. There might be a few, but that's the way it goes. But on the men's side, obviously, you have some upsets still here once in a while. And, you know, hopefully women's tennis will get there to where there's a lot of depth through one through 100."...Lindsay Davenport on Justin Gimel"blog"'s writing about the women players on SI.com: "The funny thing is he's one of my closest friends. We've been on vacation like four times in the last two years together, we practice together. He knows the different stances that we all take. We obviously have conversations about it. His quote to me was that all men are like him; he just expresses it. I said I have higher hope for men than that (laughter from the assembled media). I don't believe that they're all that bad. So, you know, it's just a philosophical difference, but it wasn't really, you know -- we believe different things, that's all."...Mary Pierce on the new generation of women-child players: "They seem to be mentally, umm, different, I guess. You know, a lot more, I don't know ---I don't know, I can't find the right words, probably. I only know them really tennis-wise. But game-wise, tennis-wise, pretty aggressive players, baseliners. Aggressive, I would say." Spray-guns, would you say?...Through two rounds of play, Ivo Karlovic leads the men in aces with 62, followed by Gustavo Kuerten's 44...From Jossip.com: "Be sure to send us camera phone snaps of paid street walkers stripping these (Andy Roddick) AmEx ads from the city. Bonus really, really gay interpretation of Mojo that somehow slipped passed Andy Roddick's publicist after the jump -- While waiting for AndysMojo.com to load, you'll be treated to the gay green cowboy."...Sania Mirza is the first Indian woman into the fourth round at the US Open...Since Gilles Muller took Andy Roddick's Mojo, then Robby Ginepri beat Muller, does Ginepri now have Andy's Mojo sitting in his player box during matches? Will he give Mojo back? Does he make Mojo wash his car? Is that the most career-denting ad campaign for Roddick since Andre Agassi's "Image is Everything" Cannon ads? -- 'Yeah, American Express? I need to cancel my card...No, no, no problems, I...I just want to quit looking at this thing in my wallet...Yeah, Andy -- R-o-d-d...'...Taylor Dent on facing Lleyton Hewitt: "Cheering on double-faults and easy miss shots, I wouldn't call that super sportsmanship. So I don't think too many of the guys would. I don't even think Lleyton would, I don't know. Maybe he's got something else to say about that. But it's all part of the game. If it bothers you, then, you know, you better pray you don't play against those guys because there's a few of them out there."...Former doubles slam title winner Lleyton Hewitt on the doubles controversy: "I don't know enough about it, to tell you the truth. Obviously, the doubles guys are pretty disappointed. It's a hard situation because tournament directors still have to look at what's the right thing for their tournaments that they're putting so much money into. I can't speak on behalf of them. Me, as a player, I don't play a whole heap of doubles because the singles tour is hard enough as it is."...Will the exhausted and injured Andy Murray actually play a 12th consecutive week of tournaments next week at the Challenger he is entered in? Puke-boy needs a rest...Andre Agassi trainer Gil Reyes says the end is near: "(Andre) knows this is the last time, though whether that's a matter of months or weeks we don't know. Now is the time. There is no tomorrow. We just don't know -- hopefully years. But we know we're at the end of a wonderful career, one that he's very grateful for. He understands that he must bring everything he has."...Arnaud Clement, last qualifier standing for the men at the US Open...Ever heard of the band Institute? Roger Federer, who went to see the band Thursday night, has...Johnette Howard writing for Newsday: "If we hadn't already seen Serena Williams shrug off the sight of one of her $40,000 diamond earrings clattering to the court during her first-round US Open match on Monday with the same nonchalance she once reserved for the loss of those 10-cent beads that used to fall out of her or her sister's hair, perhaps her announcement by Wednesday that she was donating $100 for every ace she hits the rest of the year to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort wouldn't have seemed so galling. Serena had just played her second straight match dripping in diamond earrings and, as an added touch, a necklace of all diamonds. That extravagance -- and the knowledge that the two aces she had Wednesday put her out all of $200 for the relief effort -- made the self-congratulatory statement that "I've always considered myself a bit of philanthropist" seem even worse. Far worse than her sister Venus' trance-like admission earlier in the day that she hadn't heard about Hurricane Katrina at all."