Americans Isner, Querrey advance in men's draw

Powered almost as much by the popularity quotient as pure tennis nobility, the U.S. Open again had plenty of juice Friday in the men's draw.

The young American giants (physically, anyway), John Isner and Sam Querrey, continued to advance. And heretofore-unnoticed Jamaican Dustin Brown balanced title contender Andy Murray's high level of play with a joyful eagerness and neon look that was hard to miss.

Brown lost his second-round match to Murray, 7-5, 6-3, 6-0, but qualified as yet another crowd favorite. Brown disdained the sideline chair during changeovers, preferring to stand "because when I play, I play my best tennis when I'm a little bit more emotional and awake and everything.

"I always have the feeling that when I sit down that my pulse and everything just goes down, so I just don't do it anymore."

He also stood out, with one green and one - was it pink? - shoelace.

"It's not pink, first of all," he said. "It's orange. It's orange, OK? It's not pink."

Meanwhile Murray, the No. 4 seed from Britain who has been threatening to win a major tournament for years, didn't need long to figure out Brown's quick serve and began to cruise against the world's 123rd-ranked player.

"He started off very, very flashy," Murray said. "The first couple of games, I didn't have many chances, but toward the end of the set, I started to have some opportunities. When you play as high-risk tennis as that, it's difficult over five sets to keep it up."

Murray presented Brown only one break-point opportunity (which he converted) the entire match and committed 15 unforced errors, compared to Brown's 24, in storming through blustery conditions.

Almost as routine was Querrey's 6-2, 6-3, 6-4 decision over Marcel Granollers, the 94th-ranked Spaniard. And Querrey's towering twin Isner - Querrey is 6-6, Isner 6-9 - knocked off Switzerland's Marco Chiudinelli, ranked 63rd, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4.

On his serve, Querrey said, "I was getting great pop. Every time I was hitting it flat down the T or out wide on the ad, it felt like it was somewhere between 135 and 140, so that's a little faster than normal."

As a result, Granollers broke Querrey only once.

Ultimately, Querrey's only grumble after his second match at Louis Armstrong Stadium was that none of the remaining American men has yet played on the No. 1 court, inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. (Andy Roddick played there twice but lost Wednesday night.)

Isner's primary worry, on the other hand, was his fitness, eroded during almost two weeks of inactivity after a badly sprained ankle.

"First time I hit was two days before the tournament," he said. "It kind of hit me in the third set, and really throughout the match, I was feeling it. I don't feel I had the pop on my shots I normally would."

Things could improve, though, for him and his fellow Yanks. The popular James Blake is scheduled for Ashe Stadium Saturday night.