US Open: Mardy Fish rolls; No. 5 seed Petra Kvitova falls on Day 1 - Washington Post (blog)

Posted at 04:29 PM ET, 08/29/2011

By Matt Brooks

Mardy Fish is fit and playing the best tennis of his life. And as the top-seeded American at the U.S. Open, the home crowd will be watching, cheering and hoping to see Fish bring home the nation's first Grand Slam title since Andy Roddick won in Flushing Meadows in 2003.
Mardy Fish breezed into the second round with a confident victory over Tobias Kamke. (RAY STUBBLEBINE - REUTERS)

• Live first-round scoreboard

It's the kind of pressure Andy Murray could make the subject of his autobiography — trying to win the big one on home soil.

But no one is expecting Fish to unseat Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal (although he did knock off the latter 10 days ago at the Western & Southern Open). He's never been in this position before — America's best hope at America's top tournament. In keeping with his personality, he'll do his best to enjoy the experience.

On Monday, Fish, the No. 8 seed, opened his tournament with an easy 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 victory against Tobias Kamke.

Other seeded winners from Monday's first round: Marin Cilic, Alexander Dolgopolov, Richard Gasquet, Tomas Berdych, Janko Tipsarevic and Marcel Granollers.

On the women's side fifth-seeded Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova was the first big-name to fall (if the U.S. Open goes anything like previous three majors this year, there will be many more in the coming days) as she fell to Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru 7-6 (7-3), 6-3.

More U.S. Open coverage:

Liz Clarke: Fitter Mardy Fish is top-seeded American at 2011 U.S. Open

American Mardy Fish wins first U.S. Open match in straight sets, beats Tobias Kamke

Going according to plan, Tomas Berdych gets first-round win

Kei Nishikori retires with back injury against Flavio Cipolla

Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova upset by Alexandra Dulgheru

'That was, like, 2 years ago': Serena Williams doesn't think about tirade at '09 U.S. Open

Maria Sharapova sees familiar faces in different places heading into U.S. Open