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Tom Rinaldi on the current state of American tennis

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  Tom Rinaldi on the current state of American tennis

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  The experts on the current state of American tennis

NEW YORK -- Andy Roddick powered into the U.S. Open's third round, one of five American men who won Thursday.

The 2003 champion at Flushing Meadows pounded 13 aces, didn't face a break point until the final game and easily eliminated 81st-ranked Marc Gicquel of France 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 at night.

Roddick improved to 4-0 against Gicquel, winning all 11 sets they've played.

The fifth-seeded Roddick will take on 55th-ranked John Isner in an all-American matchup. The 6-foot-9 Isner beat Marsel Ilhan of Turkey 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (1).

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TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty ImagesJames Blake has reached at least the third round of the U.S. Open in his last seven appearances.

Other U.S. men advancing Thursday: No. 21 James Blake, No. 22 Sam Querrey and 276th-ranked qualifier Jesse Witten.

Novak Djokovic of Serbia also moved into the third round with a straight-sets victory over qualifier Carsten Ball of Australia.

Blake staved off three straight set points in a third-set tiebreak to overcome Olivier Rochus of Belgium, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-3.

The match, scheduled for late afternoon at Flushing Meadows, started late and continued past sunset, pushing back night matches involving Maria Sharapova and Roddick by nearly two hours.

With stadium workers removing trash from the upper deck at Arthur Ashe Stadium to get ready for the night session, Blake fell behind 6-3 in the third-set tiebreak. But he answered with five straight points to pull it out -- jumping for joy and shouting out when he hit a down-the-line winner to seal the set.

"I had some nail-biting moments there in the tiebreaker in the third set," Blake said. "Could have gone either way. To get through that and feel good, get the emotions and feel the crowd getting into it -- everything about it was really good."

He broke Rochus' serve in the sixth game of the fourth set and served out the match from there.

Blake has advanced to at least the third round of the U.S. Open in his last seven appearances -- he missed 2004 after breaking his neck in a freak accident when he ran into a net post -- but has yet to get past the quarterfinals of any major.

His next match is against 14th-seeded Tommy Robredo.

The No. 4-seeded Djokovic, the runner-up at Flushing Meadows in 2007, had no problems getting past the 155th-ranked Ball 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.

Djokovic is seeking his second Grand Slam championship after winning the Australian Open in 2008. Ball had never won a match at a major tournament until this week.

Djokovic will meet Witten in the third round.

Witten was playing on the Futures circuit earlier this year, where the same balls are used all match and have swelled up by the end. The winner may earn only about $1,200 and competitors sometimes stay with host families -- which beats the alternative of a dingy motel.

"The families really help you out," the 26-year-old American said after beating Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina 6-7 (3), 6-4, 7-5, 6-2. "They give you some food and make you feel like you're at home every once in a while."

Now he's staying at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Witten was considering quitting tennis at the start of this year after he lost his sponsor, a software security company in his hometown of Naples, Fla. Asked about his money situation, Witten quipped, "Or lack thereof?"

But he won enough at those minor league tournaments "in some places that you probably have never heard of" to stay afloat.

"Mansfield, Texas. Brownsville," he said when asked to name some of the out-of-the-way locales. "I don't even remember them, because half the time I didn't really want to know. I mean, there's a lot of little places that you don't get any recognition.

"It's tough. You just have to go out there and put the time in and get through it so you can get to here," he said.

In other action Thursday, No. 20 Tommy Haas of Germany defeated American Robert Kendrick. No. 8 Nikolay Davydenko, 10th-seeded Fernando Verdasco and No. 15 Radek Stepanek also advanced. French Open runner-up Robin Soderling advanced when his opponent, Marcel Granollers, quit during the third game with a back injury.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.