Federer, Fish cruise to U.S. Open wins

So routine, and expeditious, was the tennis on Arthur Ashe Stadium's day ticket Thursday -- the three matches, combined, took two hours and 59 minutes -- that five-time U.S. Open champion Roger Federer agreed to offer the crowd a brief serving tutorial on his way out the door.

Federer's 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 second-round romp over Israeli Dudi Sela, ranked 93rd, was sandwiched between a pair of straight-sets women's matches in which the two losers won a total of three games. So Pam Shriver, working the public address system, requested the public lesson from Federer.

He warned that he couldn't give away too many secrets, lest the fans become better servers than he, then hit the high points on ball toss and learning to use the legs. He previously demonstrated all the proper technique against Sela, winning all 13 of his service games, never even allowing a break point.

Federer put 88 percent of his first serves in play and hit a 128-mph peak speed.

"Yeah, not much trouble of my serve,'' he said later. "And, from the baseline, I also thought I had the upper hand. I do have bad days,'' he insisted, but Thursday wasn't one of them.

Neither did top seed Novak Djokovic, in a 6-0, 6-0, 6-2 cruise past Argentina's No. 74 Carlos Berlocq, have a long evening. Nor did top-ranked American Mardy Fish, seeded eighth, against Tunisia's Malek Jaziri in Louis Armstrong Stadium, dismissing the world's 181st-ranked player. Fish, too, won all his service games, reached 131 mph on the radar and forced Jaziri into 56 errors.

"I'm not going to sit here and act like I do this all the time,'' Fish said. "I've come up against better players than I have in these first two rounds. So I'm not taking anything for granted.''

With two other top seeds, No. 9 Tomas Berdych and No. 11 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, also winning in straight sets, it was left for Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero and France's Gael Monfils to provide some long-running theater.

It took Ferrero, the 2003 Open runner-up to Andy Roddick and now ranked 105th, five sets and four hours and 48 minutes to beat Monfils, the No. 7 seed, 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4. The baselining Ferrero and dancing, diving Monfils had the Armstrong crowd on its feet at the end.

"When you saw this crowd enjoying all the time,'' Ferrero said, "I think they love this kind of match, so it's great to be in there.''

Monfils tried to explain how "all the people think I'm elastic'' with the full-out dives, which "I know is so good for two seconds. Then you're like, 'Oh, ----, is still hard [court].' "

There was a lesson for the crowd in that, too.