When he won his first match at the U.S. Open, Rafael Nadal looked like a mummy, with tape wrapped around both knees and his left thigh. Michael McLune, a 17-year-old playing in his first U.S. Open got sick on court, and then played his best tennis, losing 7–6(0) in the third set to a consistent veteran. Jonas Björkman, 35, served, volleyed, and scrambled for five sets in the hot sun and increasing humidity yesterday against a player 15 years his junior.

Then there’s Richard Gasquet who retired from the U.S. Open because of a sore throat.

After a morning practice session, Gasquet called a press conference and said he would not play his second round match. He had a virus. His throat hurt. It was impossible — impossible — to play his best tennis, so why go on?

“With my illness, I’m sure I can’t win this match,” Gasquet said. He added, “I’m sure you understand.” Sorry, we don’t. Gasquet’s opponent, of course, was Donald Young, the up-and-coming 18-year-old American who has won two professional matches in his career. He now finds himself safely in the third round of the U.S Open, where he’ll meet Feliciano Lopez, who scored a tense 6–7(3) 7–5, 3–6, 6–4, 7–6(5) victory over Igor Andreev. Lopez, a hard-serving lefty, is one of those pros who could either bludgeon you or sleepwalk through the match Young ought to have his chances. But let us set aside results for a moment and return to the true subject of yesterday’s U.S. Open matches: grit. Gas’s pathetic moment at a Grand Slam in recent memory, and among the least inspired showings, perhaps, in the history of tennis. It’s the last major of the year, and the final month of what has been a poor summer for Gasquet since he reached his first Grand Slam semifinal at Wimbledon. He did that, by the way, by playing with courage and conviction under trying conditions (he trailed Andy Roddick by two sets and a break, circumstances that would deprive many players of their will to continue).

Gasquet, the no. 13 seed, sounded a little nasally, but he seemed quite able-bodied and hardly looked like a man — he’s all of 21 years old — who hadn’t slept in days or was suffering from severe dehydration. In further conversations in French, according to a French reporter, Gasquet revealed that his legs felt a bit weak, and that he had to stay in town until Saturday, as his doctor didn’t want him to fly.

If you’re going to be around for a few days, why not try to win a match against an inexperienced opponent and then retire if you can’t play?

“I know I don’t have chances to play my best tennis, so I really don’t want to stop the match,” Gasquet said.

Tennis players are not wont to criticize other tennis players, and no one was willing to take Gasquet to task yesterday, at least not bluntly. Andy Roddick, who celebrated his 25th birthday yesterday with a victory over Jose Acasuso (an Argentine who at least had the decency to quit mid-match because of a knee injury), suggested he would have chosen a different course if he had been in similar circumstances.

“I can only speak for myself,” Roddick said. “If you’re sick, you know, I don’t feel like that’s going to get worse. I feel like that’s a short-term thing.”

Brad Gilbert, Roddick’s former coach and now the coach of Andy Murray, who defeated Björkman yesterday, had similar thoughts. “Considering he’s ranked 13 or 14 in the world, you figure he would welcome a guy ranked 200,” Gilbert said.

Perhaps Gasquet did what no player ever admits to doing: look ahead in the draw. Two rounds away, Roger Federer awaits. As week one of the Open draws to a close, he seems to be approaching the early season form that he couldn’t quite equal in the middle of the year.

The French Open final went to Nadal, and the Wimbledon final nearly did, too, but the summer has belonged to Federer. First, he reached the final in Montreal. Then he won in Cincinnati. On Wednesday evening, he carved up Paul Capdeville with precise forehands and backhands. Those shanks we saw so often between February and July — and the mildly irritated look that went along with them — have disappeared. He looks as fresh as he did at the Australian Open, where he said he was as relaxed as he had ever been on a tennis court.

Federer is increasingly portrayed as a man of fashion, a guy who pals around with Anna Wintour and wears a blazer to his matches (at Wimbledon only). As Federer walked through the players’ garden yesterday, Gilbert remarked on the world no. 1’s all-black outfit from Tuesday evening (socks included), to which Federer responded, “You like the dark side, hah, Brad?”

It’s fine to talk fashion, but it’s a shame that Federer’s sense of style often blurs out the fact that he is, in his own way, the strongest, toughest, grittiest guy on the tour. Federer doesn’t retire from matches — ever. He doesn’t lose to bad opponents, not even occasionally. He wins without playing his best tennis. Several times in the last couple of years — Gasquet, take note — he has even had the courage to play through a cold.

Federer takes on John Isner tomorrow and then the winner of Young and Lopez. Unfortunately, he might become a one-man American killer in this tournament: He could play Isner, Young, Roddick, and Blake in consecutive matches if those Americans continue to advance. But he’ll do it in style, of course.

Tom Perrotta is a senior editor at Tennis magazine. He can be reached at tperrotta@nysun.com.