Arab No1 Malek Jaziri was dealt a hefty defeat in his opening round of the US Open despite a strong start against Belgium’s Steve Darcis.

The 28-year-old Tunisian was unable to match his second round showing in New York from last year as he fell 3-6, 6-1, 6-1, 6-1 to an in-form Darcis, who before the victory, had only won two matches at the US Open.

Darcis, however, is coming off an impressive quarter-final appearance at Winston Salem last week, where he defeated Andy Roddick en route, and he also ousted world No7 Tomas Berdych from the first round of the Olympics last month.

Jaziri, ranked 89 in the world, started off the better player as he broke Darcis twice for a 4-1 lead and even though the Belgian got one of the breaks back, Jaziri wrapped up the set with another break in the ninth game.

But Darcis returned a new man in the second set and he took full advantage of some poor serving from Jaziri, whose first serve percentage took a nosedive to a dismal 37 per cent and was broken three times to surrender the set in 33 minutes.

The third set was no better despite Jaziri’s better serving and Darcis quickly broke for a 3-1 lead. Jaziri attempted to stop the bleeding as he saved two break points when down 0-40 at 1-4 but Darcis pouced on the third one to take a commanding 5-1 lead and eventually the set in 25 minutes.

A little over a half hour later, Jaziri was sent packing as he suffered another stint of poor serving and was broken another three times.

Darcis ended the match with 10 winners that were all aces, while Jaziri’s five winners came from aces as well which is a telling stat of the quality of a match that comprised of 30 games.

The world No74 will next take on the winner of the clash between Stanislas Wawrinka and Sergiy Stakhovsky.

 

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