To the aesthete, the one-handed backhand of Richard Gasquet is a triumph of artistry all the more enthralling for its scarcity in the modern game. To the young Australian Bernard Tomic, it was the blunt-force instrument of his demise on Saturday in the US Open third round.
Gasquet pounded 43 winners against 18 unforced errors and faced no break points in a comfortable 6-4, 6-3, 6-1 win over Tomic, who was clearly spent from Thursday’s physical and emotional five-set win over Lleyton Hewitt. The 22-year-old lasted a scant 89 minutes on a sun-splashed afternoon on the Grandstand, the intimate bandbox of a court adjacent to Louis Armstrong Stadium that has been condemned to demolition after this year.
“I was trying but I was very tired,” Tomic said. “I just couldn’t keep up with the ball speed. He was playing different, heavy. Not that I was playing very bad, but I just couldn’t find the momentum at the right time. He was playing very good tennis.”
The 12th-seeded Frenchman’s exquisite one-hander, at times struck with such power and precision it sounded like a gunshot coming off his fluorescent yellow racket, made the difference on a series of key points. He used it to break Tomic to love at 2-2 in the first, twice more during another break to love in the opening game of the second, then twice more when he broke to take a two sets to love lead. By the third set, Tomic could only stare in disbelief as Gasquet crunched winner after winner into the corners.
Tomic said: “I knew I needed to get my legs ready for today if I had any chance. You can’t play risk tennis against Richard Gasquet. You have to step up and play his game a little bit and on the right ball you have to go for it. I was going for it too early because I just didn’t have the legs to stay with him.”
A highlight came in the second game of the third set when Tomic hit a impossibly angled drop shot, but Gasquet somehow arrived in time to wrap it around the post for a winner. His momentum carried him to Tomic’s side of the court, where the two exchanged a fist bump as the crowd showed their appreciation with a standing ovation.
“Bernard is a great friend of mine,” Gasquet said of the exchange. “I think I can do it with him. You don’t do it with guys you don’t like.”
Gasquet, who joined countrymen Jérémy Chardy, Benoît Paire and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the last 16, advances to face sixth seed Tomas Berdych, who rallied for a 6-7, 7-6, 6-3, 6-3 over the 31st seed, Guillermo Garcia-López.
Gasquet appeared on the cover of France’s leading tennis magazine at the age of nine, but has had an up-and-down career. He enjoyed one of his finest wins at this year’s Wimbledon, when he saw off French Open winner Stan Wawrinka in the quarter-finals before losing to Novak Djokovic.
