Murray, Serena ride strong serves into US Open second round
Williams powered into the second round of the US
Open as the stars came out on Arthur Ashe Stadium
court on Tuesday night.
Williams, launching her latest bid to rewrite the
record books, started strong and didn’t let up in
6-3, 6-3 victory over 29th-ranked Ekaterina
Makarova.
The US world number one appeared untroubled by
the balky right shoulder that has hindered her in
recent weeks, delivering a dozen aces and 27
winners overall in the 63-minute contest.
“I knew today I needed to be focused because I’ve
played her. She’s gotten to the semi-finals. She goes
deep in majors,” Williams said of the Russian left-
hander who beat her in the fourth round of the
2012 Australian Open.
“She knows how to play big matches on big courts.
She’s not intimidated. I knew I had to really come
out today. It was my only option really.”
Williams said she wouldn’t know until she’d slept
on it how her shoulder might respond to the effort.
“Every day, I’ll just see how it goes,” said Williams,
who is chasing a record seventh title on the
hardcourts of Flushing Meadows where she first
triumphed in 1999.
A victory would see her break the Open Era record
of 22 Grand Slam titles she now shares with German
Steffi Graf and close in on Margaret Court’s all-time
mark of 24 major titles.
While Williams has struggled since Wimbledon,
Murray went from claiming a second title at the All
England club to a successful defence of his Olympic
gold in Rio.
Vying to become the fourth man in the Open Era to
reach all four major finals in a calendar year,
Murray, too, produced a dominant service
performance in a 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Czech
Lukas Rosol.
“I don’t think I had any break points against me,
which is very good,” the Scot said.
Before the floodlights came up, Serena’s elder sister
Venus claimed a Grand Slam record of her own as
her 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 victory over Ukraine’s Kateryna
Kozlova marked her 72nd appearance in the main
draw of a major.
The 36-year-old Venus, enjoying a resurgence in a
2016 season that includes a WTA title in Taiwan,
survived 63 unforced errors against the rising 22-
year-old, although she was pleased that her
aggressive approach also yielded 46 winners.
“The good part is I’m playing the game I want to
play, I’m playing aggressively and moving
forward,” Venus said.
“It’s just about making a few less errors and it’s a
completely different story.”
Fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, trying
to make it to the quarter-finals in New York for the
first time, breezed past US qualifier Jessica Pegula
6-1, 6-1 and fifth-seeded Romanian Simona Halep
also eased through with a 6-0, 6-2 victory over
Belgian Kirsten Flipkens.
Men’s third seed Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland, a
two-time semi-finalist, reached the second round
with a 7-6 (7/4), 6-4, 6-4 win over Spain’s Fernando
Verdasco.
Kei Nishikori, who became Asia’s first men’s Grand
Slam finalist in New York 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.
– A lot of aces –
Eighth-seeded Dominic Thiem of Austria needed five
sets to secure his second-round spot, downing
Australia’s John Millman 6-3, 2-6, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3.
Juan Martin del Potro, the 2009 US Open champion
whose career was nearly ended by three wrist
surgeries, advanced with a 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (7/3) victory
over fellow Argentine Diego Schwartzman.
There was a little record-setting on the men’s side
as well, with Croatian Ivo Karlovic belting a US
Open record of 61 aces in a 4-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-7 (4/7),
7-6 (7/5), 7-5 win over Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun.
Karlovic, 37, beat the previous best of 49 aces for
one match in New York established by Richard
Krajicek in 1999.
“I knew there were a lot of aces because there was
a period when almost every serve was an ace,”
Karlovic said.
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