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METERWith her 102nd victory at the US Open, Serena Williams set a record and reached the second round of the Grand Slam tournament. The 38-year-old American tennis player beat her compatriot Kristie Ahn, ten years her junior, on Tuesday (local time) in 81 minutes 7: 5, 6: 3. With this, Williams surpassed Chris Evert in the US statistics. Open, who won 101 matches in New York in the history of professional tennis.
“That’s great. I don’t think I appreciate it enough, but I’m in the middle of a Grand Slam. So now is not the time to look at the records when I think about winning a tournament,” Williams said.
She is aiming for her 24th title in one of the four biggest tournaments in the world. This would put her on her level with Australian record holder Margaret Court. Her next rival on Thursday is Russia’s Margarita Gasparjan. On the other hand, Serena’s older sister, Venus Williams, was eliminated after a 3: 6, 5: 7 against Czech number 20, Karolina Muchova.
Clijsters is out
Venus Williams also set a new record: The two-time US Open winner hit Flushing Meadows 22 times. Martina Navratilova made 21 US Open appearances during her career.
Meanwhile, Belgian Kim Clijsters, who missed her first win since her surprising comeback, flopped. The 37-year-old had to admit defeat to 21st seed of Russia Ekaterina Alexandrowa after a promising 6: 3, 5: 7, 1: 6 start. Clijsters made her return to the WTA tour in February after a seven-year hiatus and hasn’t been to New York since 2012.
The mother of three has now won the Grand Slam tournament at Flushing Meadows three times (2005, 2009, 2010). Upon her return, Clijsters also failed in the first round in Dubai and Monterrey. For the Masters tournament to move from Cincinnati to New York last week, it had to cancel.
With a tremendous show of force, former world number one Andy Murray made it to the second round. The 33-year-old Briton beat the Japanese Yoshihito Nishioka 4: 6, 4: 6, 7: 6 (7: 5), 7: 6 (7: 4), 6: 4. Murray, who actually wanted to finish his career at In early 2019 due to another hip operation, he used his first match point after 4:38 hours. Last year’s finalist Daniil Medvedev of Russia made it that much easier with his 6: 1, 6: 2, 6: 4 against Federico Delbonis of Argentina.
For German veteran Philipp Kohlschreiber, on the other hand, the first Grand Slam tournament has already ended after the forced break of Corona for several months. The 36-year-old Augsburg lost to Vasek Pospisil of Canada 6: 7 (4: 7), 5: 7, 6: 7 (3: 7). “He played almost perfectly from behind and determined the rallies,” said Kohlschreiber, who was the third of five Germans to be eliminated from the start. Peter Gojowczyk and Dominik Koepfer also missed the second round.
