Yen-Hsun Lu pulled off the upset of the tournament so far, beating Andy
Roddick, the No.5 seed 4-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-7, 9-7. So now it will be Lu, from
Chinese Taipei, who faces Novak Djokovic in the quarter finals.
Roddick was last year's beaten finalist and coming into this year's event, he
was one of the contenders to get to the latter stages of the event again. But
somehow the world No.82, a man whose best grand slam result was the third
round at the Australian Open last year, outlasted him and out-hit him.
Roddick only faced two break points throughout the four hour, 36 minute match
and he only lost his serve once - in the final game. Her served 38 aces and
hit 85 winners. But still it was not enough to beat Lu.
It was not a match for the purists, not by any means. Two men in baseball
caps standing several feet behind the baseline and battering the ball at one
another does not make for a classic grass court encounter. But with Lu's
record against top 10 players - played 11, won two - the form book did not
suggest that he was going to make an impression on Roddick whatever method of
attack he chose.
But Lu stuck to his guns and kept pounding away from the baseline. Some of
the hitting was ferocious but from Lu's side of the court, it did not at
first appear to make any inroads into Roddick's defences.
Only when he got to the second set tie-break did he get a sniff of a chance.
A couple of overhit groundstrokes and a badly timed double fault from Roddick
provided Lu with his first set point, and he leapt on it.
This left Roddick to scratch his head: he had been on court for 95 minutes
and he had yet to face a break point but now he was at a set apiece with the
world No.82. Just under an hour later, he had still not faced a break point
and yet now he was two-sets-to-one down. Another double fault, this time in
the third set tie-break, had given Lu a set point and, yet again, the man
from Chinese Taipei had converted it.
By this stage, Lu was hitting a few more aces and was varying his tactics
occasionally - sometimes he ventured towards the net to break up the
metronomic baseline rallying and, more often than not, when he did attack, he
claimed the point.
Then, at last, Lu tried to break the pattern of the previous three sets - he
manufactured a break point in the fifth game of the fourth set. He had waited
nearly three hours for the opportunity and he held it for fully five shots
before Roddick whisked the chance away from his racket strings with a drop
volley.
And on they went into yet another tie-break which, at first, did not look
good for Roddick. Three backhand errors left him trailing 3-0 before he
managed to work his way back. As he pushed Lu a little harder, he forced him
into two forehand errors which were enough to claim him the set. Finally,
after a little more than 3½ hours, they were level pegging at 2-2.
Still there was almost nothing between the two men and despite his lack of
experience at this level, Lu was cool, calm and collected as Roddick tried to
find a way past him. As the possibility of an upset grew greater, so Roddick
was running out of time.
The American had a couple of break points in the fifth game of the final set
and another in the ninth, but he could not convert them. That was to be
Roddick's last stand - with one final, flashing forehand pass, Lu was through
to the quarter finals.
From: http://ppt.cc/E2rJ
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