With the crowd roaring throughout the second set, Williams finished off Makarova in the ninth game, smacking a backhand victor for match point.
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Johnson, who lost in the first round at his last three U.S. Opens, routed Donskoy 6-1, 6-1 at the Olympics less than three weeks earlier.
Serena Williams’ serve was in fine form in a routine first-round win over Ekaterina Makarova at the US Open.
She fell one short of the Indian Wells title, losing to Victoria Azarenka, and although she won Wimbledon and Rome, her desire to win singles gold in Rio fell short of the medals, and she subsequently pulled out of Cincinnati with a shoulder injury.
Kei Nishikori, who became Asia’s first men’s Grand Slam finalist in NY in 2014, when he fell to Marin Cilic in the final, also advanced, downing German Benjamin Becker 6-1, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.
Williams appeared to deliver an ominous warning to her rivals as her right arm shot 12 aces and did not concede a single break point.
“It was a great feeling of course”, said Nishikori, whose breakthrough run in 2014 was followed by an abrupt first-round exit a year ago. “I’m going to try to change that for the second round”. “But I do apologise”, the Australian said of the spectator. “That’s all I can say”.
She wasn’t entirely confident coming in that the serve was going to be working. Tomic later claimed he didn’t remember what the heckler was saying to him.
Tomic, 23, has attracted plenty of controversy on and off the court. He has been accused of tanking matches and suspended from Australia’s Davis Cup team and had multiple run-ins with police.
There are obstacles in Williams’ path as she seeks this milestone at age 34, those that will be more hard to overcome than Makarova – a solid veteran who didn’t have the game or anywhere near the answers to persevere in this match, during which constant chatter within the stands was audible throughout.
The 27-year-old del Potro, nearly pushed into retirement by three wrist surgeries, is back at Flushing Meadows for the first time since 2013, earning a wild card invitation with a stirring run to an Olympic silver medal.
Bouchard is suing the grand slam and the United States Tennis Association after slipping on a wet changing room floor a year ago and having to withdraw from the competition.
Del Potro is ranked just 142nd and needed a wild card to get in. King managed to win a draining first set tiebreak and then took over the match from there in impressive fashion.
Sports/Reuters picNEW YORK, Aug 31 – World number one Serena Williams opened her US Open account with a tidy 6-3 6-3 win over Ekaterina Makarova yesterday, to join her sister Venus in the second round of the year’s final grand slam.
Venus outlasted Ukraine’s Kateryna Kozlova 6-2 5-7 6-4 before turning over the Arthur Ashe Stadium court to her top-seeded sibling.
These two have played once in the past, which was in the 2014 US Open, a match Serena won in straight sets. Wawrinka beat the hard-hitting Verdasco 7-6 (4) 6-4 6-4 to make it to the next round.
Serena and Venus Williams made winning starts at the season’s final grand slam, though in contrasting fashion. Donaldson is ranked a career-best 122nd. A two-time quarterfinalist at Flushing Meadows, Tipsarevic got in on a protected ranking.
Serena has now won 305 Grand Slam matches – one shy of Martina Navratilova’s Open era record.
Querrey stunned the top-ranked Djokovic in the third round at Wimbledon en route to his first major quarterfinal.
Williams earned another service break to go up 3-2 thanks to one of those Makarova errors.
Stosur, however, streaked out to a 4-0 lead in the deciding set and next will face Zhang Shuai, who defeated Ellen Perez 6-1, 6-1.
Looking cool, calm and collected – and most importantly pain-free – Williams recorded a 6-3 6-3 victory in the first round. But he exited in the first round in 2011, 2013 and 2015.
On the other side of the ledger, 29th seed Ana Ivanovic lost 7-6 (7/4), 6-1 to Czech Denisa Allertova.
She broke in the sixth game and served out the first set in under half an hour, 6-3.
The Serb was serving for the first set at 6-5 but struggled with her serve and faltered in the tiebreaker. The 2008 French Open champion finished with seven double-faults and 41 unforced errors.
“I have always admired her game”.
The late wobble, in front of a crowd that included compatriot Nadia Comeneci – the first gymnast to be awarded a flawless score of 10 – had Halep rating her own performance “less than nine”.
Williams is sticking with it, that’s for sure, as once again she chases history and Graf in Flushing.
Halep, who reached the semifinals of the US Open previous year, will next face Lucie Safarova, a 6-4, 6-4 victor over Daria Gavrilova.
So she has a little time for more shoulder recovery, but Williams was making no snap judgements about it just yet. It would take a tidy hour and change for Williams to advance to the second round, beating Makarova in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3.
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Andy Murray of Britain will face Lukas Rosol of the Czech Republic in the other evening match.
