France's Richard Gasquet produced a superb performance to send sixth seed Nikolay Davydenko crashing out of the US Open yesterday. Davydenko, who missed 11 weeks of the season after breaking his wrist in March, lost 6-3 6-4 6-2 and is the highest seed to fall in New York so far, joining seventh seed Tomas Berdych and ninth seed Andy Roddick in making an early exit. Meanwhile, a slimline Mardy Fish continued his impressive form to power into the third round. Uruguay's Pablo Cuevas served for the opening set at 5-4 before Fish stormed back to win 15 of the next 17 games to complete a 7-5 6-0 6-2 victory.
After knee surgery at the end of September last year, Fish hired a nutritionist to help him get back into shape, the 28-year-old American subsequently losing more than two stone. "I really got aggressive with my training once I knew I was able to put in long hours and not get injured or have nicks and bruises and things like that which come up when you're probably not in your best shape," Fish said. "And it really got fun. It got fun to practice. It's fun to try to outlast guys and it's fun to see when you play a match like today and you're in the heat and you crawl back and win that first set.
"You kind of look over in the changeover and see the guy has got the ice towel around his neck and he's probably not feeling that well. That's why you put in the work." Albert Montanes advanced to the last 32, beating Carsten Ball. * Press Association
