Heavy wind can lead to blowouts

They called the wind annoying.

Almost to a man - and woman - the U.S. Open competitors' first observation Saturday had to do with the strong, swirling breezes that muddled service routines and extraneous materials that interrupted play.

During one game early in former champion Maria Sharapova's 6-0, 6-0 destruction of 18-year-old American wild card Beatrice Capra, a rally was halted (and a let ruled) when Capra's visor blew off and trash - towels, plastic bags, sandwich wrappers and napkins - was washed onto the Arthur Ashe Stadium court.

"It was really tough for me, not only because it was swirling when you're playing," Capra said, "but also, like, just focusing with all the lets that we had . . . It was the worst."

Ashe Stadium's cavernous bowl, even on days with milder breezes, has a history of frustrating asymmetry: The wind typically is stronger behind one service line than the other, and is known to swirl unpredictably. Saturday the winds, in excess of 35 miles per hour, wreaked a bit more havoc.

"It's obviously really unfortunate that she had to come out, first time on Ashe, and be in those types of conditions," said Sharapova, who said she "actually has lost a few matches in those types of conditions."

Next door in Louis Armstrong Stadium, as well as the adjacent Grandstand, there was more of the same.

"Awful," said men's No. 17 seed Gael Monfils. "I mean, for me, awful. It was tough to adjust. My movement was not that good . . . Tactically and tennistically, it was not a great match."

Monfils prevailed, anyway, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (4), 6-2, 6-4, knocking off Janko Tipsarevic, who upset Andy Roddick on Thursday.

The winds hadn't yet reached their peak when fourth-seeded Jelena Jankovic, playing the first match in Ashe Stadium, was upset both by No. 31 Kaia Kanepi of Estonia, 6-2, 7-6 (1), and by the wind.

"You get frustrated with the wind because you want to hit balls in a certain direction, and they go, you know, everywhere except where you want them to go," Jankovic said. "And then as well it's physical because you have to move your feet a lot more. You have to be alert."

Then again, five-time men's champion Roger Federer, a straight-sets winner over Paul-Henri Mathieu, claimed, "You can also use the wind to your advantage. But you have to be careful with it, not aim at the lines."