Fish Withdraws; Federer, Murray Reach QFs

Mardy Fish was forced to withdraw from his scheduled match against Roger Federer while later in the day Tomas Berdych, Marin Cilic and Andy Murray all advanced into the quarterfinals.

By Erik Gudris

(September 3, 2012) -- Despite the threat of rain all day, the top half of the men's side was able to complete their round of 16 matches with both Roger Federer and Andy Murray  reaching the quarterfinals.

Federer advanced by a walkover when Mardy Fish withdrew from the tournament this morning due to a health scare that started after he beat Gilles Simon in the previous round. Fish issued a statement saying, “I regret that I have to withdraw from the US Open for precautionary measures. I was reluctant to do so, but am following medical advisement. I had a good summer and look forward to resuming my tournament schedule in the fall.”

Federer then released his own statement about Fish that said, "I am really sorry for Mardy. I just want to wish him a speedy recovery. We all want to see him back on tour soon."

Berdych to Face Federer in Quarters

Federer now enters the quarterfinals where he will meet No. 7 seed Tomas Berdych. Berdych advanced over No. 11 seed Nicolas Almagro who pushed Berdych in an opening set tiebreak but then couldn't keep up with the hard serving Czech as he clinched a 7-6(4), 6-4, 6-1 win.

"Well, I mean, our last actually six matches we played it's three all, so it's a quite nice statistics," said Berdych about his recent battles with Federer, "But, you know, this is another one. We didn't play couple of months. In that time, I mean, he played some incredible tennis again. You know, he won another Grand Slam, become No. 1 again, so, you know, probably is not ‑‑ there is no better player at all to play right now, so, yeah, I mean, when I saw the draw in the beginning, it was like, Yeah, that would be the goal to get into play a match with Roger. I'm there, so I will try to do my best."

Murray Deals With Raonic, Faces Cilic Next

Though he lost to Canada's Milos Raonic earlier in the year at Barcelona, No. 4 seed Andy Murray probably liked his chances in their rematch tonight in the round of 16 considering it would be Raonic's first ever match on Arthur Ashe Stadium.

The match would come down to Raonic's serve versus Murray's return game and though the Canadian bombed down 14 aces and was able to stay with Murray during some of their rallies, it was Murray's ability to pull Raonic into net with some clever drop shots along with handling the Raonic service game that proved to be the key.

Raonic midway through the first set threw in several double faults that allowed Murray to break him and then serve out the set 6-4. Murray, who never faced a break point the entire match, took advantage of more Raonic errors in the second and third sets to obtain early breaks of serve. Raonic could never build any momentum, even with his many forays into net to try. A second break of serve late in the final set allowed Murray to wrap a convincing 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 win.

Murray will now take on No. 12 seed Marin Cilic who is into his second quarterfinal in New York after Cilic stopped Martin Klizan earlier 7-5, 6-4, 6-0.

(File Photo: Tomas Berdych plays against David Goffin in the first round of the 2012 U.S. Open; Credit: Andy Kentla)