Johansson wins a thriller


Bloomfield-Im def Wilson/Evans 6-3,6-3
Warburg def Bogomolov 6-3,6-3
Okun def Oudsema 6-2,6-4
Vemic def Kuznetsov 7-6(3),7-6(5)
Johansson def Sweeting 6-1,3-6,7-6(1)

Sam Warburg got to the semifinals for the 2nd straight year in a row by taking out Alex Bogomolov. This match was a good start to offset the rain delay. Warburg was setting up points very nicely, just wasn't getting it complete at times. "Just can't execute. Setup 75% of the points and just letting them go," he said. He was indeed running Bogomolov around quite a bit. Bogomolov was coming up with the goods at times, and Warburg gave his opponent a couple of compliments... "that's a great point". But the percentages were with Warburg, and Bogomolov was broken in the 7th game 2nd set. He fought right back for 0-40 on Warburg's serve the next game, but he couldn't convert and that was the key of the match.

Vemic applied more of the finesse game to Kuznetsov and pulled out another close one. Kuznetsov, like the rest, just had a hard time with the variety from Vemic. Another good match that had the swings, Kuznetsov had times where he matched some of the variety... and had a 4-3 lead in the 2nd set tiebreak, but a Vemic dropper that pulled Kuznetsov in ... followed by a lob over his head, was the key point in the breaker. After an unreturnable serve to close it out, Vemic cheered the few fans who had remained to watch him (the rest had been pulled towards the magnetic Johansson match).


Grand Slam champion Thomas Johansson needed his experience to pull out the 3rd set tiebreak against Ryan Sweeting in a thrilling feature match of the day. Johansson took the 1st set with ease on 5 double faults from Sweeting. Sweeting at one point in the 5th game, just seemed to be hitting his serve as hard as he could... with 2 doubles and only one 1st serve in. He did demonstrate a rather large serve potential though. Sweeting did get some good looks, but couldn't win the important ones in the 1st set. Credit to Sweeting, he challenged in the 2nd and started to control the tempo with his huge forehand. He finally broke Johansson on a big forehand cross court winner as Johansson’s level dropped. Even the grand slammers miss overheads sometimes, as demonstrated in the 7th game... a relatively easy one that he put right into the net.

The 3rd set again had Sweeting in trouble with his serve. Johansson broke Sweeting right away in the 3rd set and had 2 break points to seemingly cruise to a 5-2 lead, but the momentum shifted as Johansson had 2 errors to let Sweeting out of the game (for 4-3 Johansson lead). Tension was building because Johansson realized he let one go. Getting dark too as we approached a cloudy 7:30p. He got the crowd going as he put his hands up on a late call in that span. Sweeting took that momentum and the lead as he broke Johansson and then held for 5-4 when he hit a backhand cross court winner to steal the point that Johansson had again set up very well. At that point, things were tense! Very tense. Could the young Sweeting continue to keep his nerve in check and pull it out? Johansson again leaned on his serve a bit to get some momentum back and hold his serve relatively easy to get to 6 all on a Sweeting forehand error wide. Was it an indicator of the pressure? Dark. Grand Slammer able to lean on his experience in the tiebreak? The tiebreak had some good long rallies as Johansson was setting up backhand to backhand trades. Some of the best backhand to backhand challenges of the week right there. 2 Johansson aces at the end to secure it. Whew... we made it to the weekend. A good match though. Can Johansson up it a notch tomorrow against Oku, who is playing well this week.

Impressions are that Sweeting had a good powerful forehand weapon there. Sweeting didn't really fold under the pressure or get negative. Notice Johansson, the way he gets his body going forward on his topspin backhand... one of the nicer motions for youngsters to try to imitate. Also notice, Johansson had key moments where his serve was very accurate, not necessarily powerful. The intensity was top notch when it had to be. It reminds you a little of that Murray match against Harsh in '05, down 5-2 in the 2nd set tiebreak on the ropes. Bottomline, Johansson figured out a way to win it when he certainly wasn't playing his best in the 2nd set. No doubt, this was a match you'd typically see in the 1st rounds of the Open... a well known, former grand slammer up against a young American gun. May not be surprising to see these guys on TV there.

Sweeting said "1st serve ended up hurting me". Johansson said "Today was a good match for both of us. I think today I was returning well and I've played 3 good matches. I've been looking forward to my matches here and it has been good for me." Magnus Norman, Johansson's coach, said "that was a good one. He's had some tough matches and that one could have gone either way. Hopefully he'll get some confidence out of winning this much and tomorrow it'll be better."

Top notch stuff this evening and we splashed right into the concert afterwards... lots of people out there dancing.