Welcome to NBCSports.com’s live coverage of day one of the U.S. Open.
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But, with her fitness a concern, it may be tough for her to achieve those feats.
Tiafoe first built his big lead, let it slip away, then served for the match after breaking Isner for a 5-3 lead in the fifth set.
With temperatures in the low 90s, the heat rule went into effect before the third set, giving the players a 10-minute break.
Williams admits that her preparations for her home grand slam event have been far from ideal. He had lost his past 20 matches against top-10 opponents.
American teen CiCi Bellis is now 2 for 2 in the first round of the U.S. Open.
Hard to imagine Venus, 36, would still be viable on tour 16 years after winning her first US Open – never mind being the No. 6 seed.
Bellis, now 17, is ranked 158th and advanced through qualifying to make the field. Djokovic is the reigning US Open champion.
Williams plays her first-round match Tuesday at 7 p.m. against Ekaterina Makarova.
Hercog says she felt OK during warmups and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to face the Australian Open champ on Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“She wanted to play the Olympics in Rio, it was very important for her but the shoulder was killing her”.
Williams hadn’t won a Grand Slam singles title for a year until she retained her title at Wimbledon, which was a seventh triumph on the lawns of SW19. Djokovic defeated Murray in the Australian and French Open finals before losing early at Wimbledon and the Olympics, where Murray was crowned champion. Trainers checked her blood pressure and rubbed ice bags on her legs.
Richard Gasquet, the first seeded player to lose at the U.S. Open, summed up his quick exit this way: “Not sure I could do worse”.
He went down to 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 to British world number 84 Kyle Edmund.
The veteran defeated Makarova 6-4, 6-0 in the third round at the US Open in 2012 and went on to clinch the title, a straight-sets win in Dubai in 2014 for the American and their second meeting at the US Open the same year were both easy wins for the six-time champion, who went on to claim her most recent title in NY in 2014.
Murray wants to increase his grand slam title count from its current three while he still has reasonable chances of doing so.
Williams is also gunning to one-up Graf in another world record at the ongoing US Open – the most number of majors won by a singles tennis player.
The good news for Nadal, he said afterward, is that the pain is gone from his wrist, which whips those violent, topspin-heavy forehands that are the key to his success _ 14 of his 21 winners came off that wing. He has twice made it to the second round at the French Open. Makarova believes the time apart not only helped refresh, but also strengthen their connection on the court, and the results bear out that hypothesis with immediate runs to the semifinals of Madrid and finals of Rome and Roland Garros.
Novak Djokovic of Serbia (right) greets Jerzy Janowicz of Poland after their 2016 US Open Men’s Singles match at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on August 29, 2016 in NY.
Vinci, who is seeded No. 7, overcame some second-set jitters to beat 46th-ranked Anna-Lena Friedsam of Germany 6-2, 6-4 on Monday.
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A year ago, it wasn’t all good feelings for Serena after she was stunned in the semifinals by Italian Roberta Vinci, bringing a shocking halt to Serena’s bid to become the first person since Steffi Graf in 1988 to win the calendar year Grand Slam. But can he leverage his stellar play in NY? The U.S. Tennis Association plans to shut the roof after the day session and open it for effect while Phil Collins performs “In the Air Tonight”.
