US Open First Week Sees Men's Top Seeds Still Standing

At the end of the first week of the US Open, the top men's seed were all standing going into their third-round matches. No German women went beyond the third round.



In the men's draw in New York, the top four seeds were still standing going into the first weekend of the two-week event, the last Grand Slam tennis tournament of the year.



The third-round matches featured top seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia against Sam Querrey of the US, Switzerland's Roger Federer and Spain's Marcel Granollers, Stan Wawrinka against Slovenia's Blaz Kavcic and David Ferrer, tied with France's Gilles Simon. Former champion Andy Murray, seeded eighth, drew Russia's Andrey Kuznetsov.



Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber, seeded 22nd, was drawn against hard-serving John Isner for his Saturday match. Kohlschreiber had beaten the American in their last two US Open matches - also in the third round - although Isner leads their career head-to-head matches 4-2.



In the women's draw, Swiss 17-year-old Belinda Bencic (photo) toppled sixth-seeded German Angelique Kerber 6-1, 7-5 in their third round match on Friday. Bencic is coached by Melanie Molitor, the mother of former champion Martina Hingis. Bencic, the 2013 Wimbledon and French Open junior champion, is ranked 58th in the world, and will next play former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic, a 6-1, 6-0 winner over Sweden's Johanna Larsson.



Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark beat 18th seed Andrea Petkovic in the third round, 6-3, 6-2. She meets Sharapova in the fourth round.



Maria Sharapova came through with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Germany's 26th seed, Sabine Lisicki, in a match that finished after midnight after nine breaks of serve and 52 unforced errors from the two players. "It was a really tough opponent I had today, a very aggressive, big server," Sharapova said. "I just tried to concentrate on my return, I wasn't serving as well as I wanted to."



World No. 2 Simona Halep and two-time champion Venus Williams both tumbled out of the tournament on Friday. Mona Barthel failed to get past the US player Varvara Lepchenko, who plays top seed Serena Williams in round three.



jm/mkg (Reuters, AFP)