BB&T Atlanta Open 2014 - Friday's fun @BBTatlantaopen

It was a beautiful if hot Friday at the BB&T Atlanta Open 2014 at Atlantic Station.  Matches started early at high noon with a couple of doubles matches followed by Isner vs. Matosevic, all quarterfinals.  See my Twitter feed for a play-by-play.

The first doubles match featured a couple of players I'd heard of beforehand, most notably Chris Guccione, and a couple that I didn't.  I scored the first set of the first match, which began well for the Australian and his partner, but ended in a tiebreaker loss.  They recovered to win the second, but lost the third set in a one-sided tiebreaker.

Johnson's serve was a big reason why he and Querrey won the match

The second doubles match featured some better pairings and the tennis was much better too.  Doubles specialists Lipsky and Gonzalez matched against a couple of singles players, fellow Californians and friends, that had already been unceremoniously bounced from the singles draw:  Sam Querrey and Steve Johnson.

Querrey and Johnson - both have great smiles, don't you think?

It was a fun match to watch from start to finish, and match point was this 138 MPH ace by Querrey, which I uploaded to YouTube for better resolution than what I posted yesterday on Twitter (and subsequently removed).

After the doubles was over, there was about an hour delay until 4 PM when the first men's quarterfinal match between John Isner and Marinko Matosevic was contested.  By that time, the sun was in full heat and the players were obviously feeling it.

The Isner "hang dawg" is both expected, and tiresome

The players traded breaks in the first set before it ended in a predictable tiebreak won by Isner, who had to come from behind to win it.  The second set began much the same way until Matosevic started to double fault his way to handing Isner the set and the match.

After leading the 1st set tiebreaker, Matosevic's double faults gave the 2nd set/match to Isner

I am looking forward to another great day at the tournament this afternoon, two semi-finals:  a doubles match between Querrey-Johnson and Kevin King-Michael Venus followed by Isner vs. Jack Sock (not before 3 PM).  Check back tomorrow for more pictures and commentary.