Forced to switch courts, Roddick advances

More improbable than their victories Thursday -- both against higher-seeded opponents -- were the unlikely U.S. Open venues where Americans Andy Roddick and John Isner prevailed.

Roddick completed a rain-delayed 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 decision by stanching fifth-seeded Spaniard David Ferrer's comeback bid midway through the fourth set after being moved into a small field court. While Isner -- Lord of the Tiebreak -- eliminated No. 12 Gilles Simon of France, 7-6 (2), 3-6, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4), on the National Tennis Center's smallest new show court, No. 17.

The locales offered a snapshot of the sometimes zany scramble to shoehorn play into a time schedule shrunk by two full days of rain. And, in Roddick's case, a frantic midday court change was necessitated by a bizarre leak sprung in the floor of Louis Armstrong Stadium that resulted in taking the 10,103-seat court offline.

First, the tennis: Roddick, the No. 21 seed who entered the day leading Ferrer 3-1, and was up 4-2 when moved to Court 13, played crisply, with 19 aces, except for a brief period in the third set and midway through the fourth.

Isner, seeded 28th, struck 26 aces and repeatedly took Simon to the tiebreak, where he seems to control all the levers: He is 13-1 in tiebreakers at the Open since 2009.

Back to the geographical developments: Roddick and Ferrer had just played 15 minutes in Armstrong on Wednesday before the weather closed in, then spent 10 minutes on that court yesterday before Roddick discovered water oozing through a crack behind one baseline and refused to continue.

After more than an hour of repair work, the players were called back, but Roddick found the problem still existed and began fuming at tournament referee Brian Earley. "Why are we out here right now?'' Roddick wanted to know.

Back in a stadium tunnel, Earley suggested a move to either the Grandstand, where the Andy Murray-Donald Young match still was in progress. Or, "If you have to play on a rotten court,'' Earley said, then took back the word "rotten,'' "We have to play on 13.''

"Let's go play. Let's go play,'' a pacing Roddick muttered. "We just want to play.''

So, from Armstrong, operations were hustled to Court 13, capacity 584. An immediate stampede of spectators and a scramble for Open officials to set up television cameras ensued. Unlike the tournament's four show courts, 13 is not equipped with a radar gun to display service speeds, or the cameras for the challenge-system replays.

Roddick was playing outside massive Arthur Ashe Stadium for the first time since 2002, the year before he won his U.S. Open title, having last played on 13 in 1999, when he lost a first-round match in the juniors' competition to Scott Lipsky, the former high school states champion from Bellmore JFK.

"I didn't think 13 was in my future,'' said Roddick, noting an atmosphere in which "a Van Morrison wannabe'' could be heard singing outside the court, a man climbing on the outside grounds fence in an attempt to see, "a couple of people doing commentary from the service line,'' and a screeching child somewhere in the distance.

"But I enjoyed it,'' Roddick said, and he finished by circling the court, slapping hands with fans.