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23 Straight: Del Potro to face Murray

Exhausted Safina to face Pennetta
By Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net

Flavia Pennetta

Mal Tam APennetta will have another shot at Safina. Is it too early to say that after 23 straight wins that Argentine teenager Juan Martin Del Potro is for real? Probably not. The tall, serve and forehand whacking teen ended 18-year-old Kei Nishikori's U.S. Open run with a quick 6-3 6-4 6-3 defeat on Monday.

Del Potro, 19, will now play sixth seed Andy Murray, who crushed Stanislas Wawrinka 6-1, 6-3, 6-3. Del Potro, who reached the quarters of a Slam for the first time, isn’t ready for his roll to end, and neither is Mardy Fish, who blasted the enigmatic Gael Monfils 7-5, 6-2, 6-2 behind relentless serve and volley attack (re 69 net approaches) and now gets a crack at Rafa Nadal.

“I'm never ever going to beat someone like that from the baseline,” Fish said. “ I know that, first and foremost, more than anybody else does. He doesn't miss. I'm not going to last out there against him. He's going to last a lot longer than me. I knew that against most guys these days I'm going to try to keep the points as short as possible, try to come to the net. My volleys are some of the best parts of my game. I think I volleyed better than I hit my forehand, so I might as well try to do that.”

Dinara Safina and Flavia Pennetta will get to revisit their LA final, which was won by the Russian, in the quarters. Safina said she’s exhausted and ruled herself out of the Fed Cup final. She didn’t look too bad in her 7-5, 6-0 win over Anna-Lena Groenefeld, but said she almost pulled out and needed to be kicked in the bottom by her coach Zeljko Krajan.

"I didn't expect to win because I was just so exhausted," said Safina. "I finished the warm-up and I just said, I cannot push myself anymore. I could not stop from crying. (My coach) said, 'We know that you're not a machine. Just go on the court and do whatever you can this day. If it's 20 percent left in your body, just give this 20 percent. Don't use another percent just throwing the balls around and shouting. Whatever you have, just try to concentrate and put it into the game.' So that's what I did today "I've grown up a lot in the mind. A year ago I would not be able to do these kind of things.”

Pennetta looked better than ever in thrashing Amelie Mauresmo 6 3, 6 0. The Italian reached her first Slam quarter, but has a large question to answer against Safina, whom she won’t be able to just counterpunch into the pavement. She’s going to have to take some risks early, something she isn't used to. Of course, Safina might not mentally recover in time and it’s possible she can out-steady her. But it’s more probable that she’s going to have to come right at Dinara, which she didn’t do in L.A.

“It's going to be tough for sure,” Pennetta said. “ She's a good player and she's in good shape. For sure, I have to play my best tennis to beat her. My first serve is also going to be important, and also, the return."
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