The sun that shone so brightly for James Ward just a couple of months ago has gone, leaving him at the dark end of the street. Aljaz Bedene, meanwhile, is walking on the bright side of the road, through to the second round of the US Open at his first attempt, with serendipity for a friend.
If the Van Morrison lyrics are appropriate to their contrasting circumstances, it is unlikely Ward, a loser here on day two, will be singing along. His demeanour dipped even below its usual downbeat norm after the Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci (whose ruffled, bouffant hairstyle make him look disturbingly like the Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis) dissected his game to win 6-1, 7-5, 6-3 in just over two hours. Not even an interruption for remedial massage on Bellucci’s back at 4-1 in the third did much to halt the flow.
Injury did help Bedene over the line against Ernests Gulbis when the unpredictable Latvian was forced to quit Court 14 injured and grumpy.
Welwyn Garden City’s favourite adopted son had moved 3-0 in the third, after dropping the first set 3-6 and coming back impressively to take the second 6-4.
The Slovenia-born Bedene, who should know after an appeal to the ITF in November if he is eligible to play Davis Cup for Great Britain, resisted Gulbis’s big serve but might have made more of his opportunities, converting only three of 12 break points.
Bedene’s form and self-belief have been on the rise and he next plays the American Donald Young, who came from two sets down to beat the 11th seed, Gilles Simon, 2-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 in three hours and 34 minutes, the third longest contest of the tournament so far.
For Ward the agony was prolonged just a little once Bellucci got up off the floor in the third set. The Briton struck eight aces, three in a desperate finish, but could not crack the Brazilian’s cool.
Back in warm, welcoming July, Ward beat Luca Vanni and Jiri Vesely to reach the third round at Wimbledon, where he gave the excellent young Canadian Vasek Pospisil a good losing argument, then was a delighted member of the Great Britain team who beat France at Queen’s – just a short tube ride from his home in Euston – for a place in the Davis Cup semi-finals against Australia in Glasgow, which will be held a week after the US Open.
However, Ward is no certainty to be in that team. If Bedene were available, it would be hard to deny him a place. Regardless of that new challenge to his place, Ward has suffered eight straight defeats since Wimbledon, two of them by players outside the top 200 and two outside the top 100, culminating in the disappointment on Tuesday, in front of a paltry crowd on Court 7.
What a contrast this linear woe is with the sequence of 14 wins that has carried Johanna Konta into the second round of the women’s draw.
It is difficult to figure how Ward could have slid so dramatically. He has no known injury problems and was hitting the ball with pleasing precision at home.
Perhaps the travel has sapped his enthusiasm, because he has wandered around the tennis globe like a lost cab driver in the latter part of the summer, losing to Simon (in the reverse singles at Queen’s), 129th ranked Michael Berrer in Bogota, Yasutaka Uchiyama (248) in Lexington, Kentucky, Zhang Ze (218) in Washington DC, Alejandro Falla (123) in Montreal, Alexandr Dolgopolov (66) in Cincinnati and Chung Hyeon(71) in Winston-Salem.
