Los Angeles, CA – The Samurai cheering group was in full force as their man Sam Querrey swept Igor Sijsling 6-2 6-2 in 50 minutes. Putting on a powerful display of serving and forehands, it was evident from his conversations with his coach in the stands, David Nainkin, that he was trying to remain close to the baseline and dictate play. His opponent Sijsling was steady and strong, able to serve into the 130mph range but kept getting down 0-40 in his service games. Sam on the other hand served 9 aces and won an impressive 23/27 points when he got his first serve in.
The crowd had a lot of fun watching Sam’s big weapons on display. Each time Sam served an ace, the Samurai group would bang a loud gong and yell their practiced cheers. Local support for Sam could be heard every game and whenever Sam would unleash a forehand winner the sound off his racket was similar to that of Sampras or Agassi. Because the day session temperature had reached the 90s, the nighttime air was cool and pleasant, making it the perfect atmosphere for Sam’s one or two shot strategy tonight. Sam will now face the winner of the match between Xavier Malisse and Matthew Ebden.
The rest of the top seeds including Nicolas Mahut and Benoit Paire will play their singles matches on Thursday. You can also catch #1 seeds Santiago Gonzalez and Scott Lipsky against the Belgians Xavier Malisse and Ruben Bemelmans. And finally, in case you didn’t get enough of Sam Querrey tonight, you can watch him team up with former USC Trojan Steve Johnson tomorrow night for their match against #4 seeds Matthew Ebden and Dominic Inglot.