Naomi Osaka had a solid start to the defense of her U.S. Open title, posting a 6-4, 6-1 win over Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic that was a little closer than the final score suggested.
Osaka and Bouzkova were dead even through a hard-fought first set filled with tight games, long points and hard-hitting rallies. In the 10th game, Osaka finally forced Bouzkova into a backhand error on her third set point to take the lead with her first service break and claim the opening set.
Osaka seemed to settle in from there, jetting to a 5-0 lead in the second set before Bouzkova was finally able to hold her serve. Osaka finished Bouzkova off in the next game with a forehand winner down the line that caught the edge of the paint.
This was a far different atmosphere than anything Osaka experienced on her march to the championship last year, when no spectators were allowed at the tournament. She played Monday at Arthur Ashe Stadium in front of nearly 20,000 fans who were loud all night and have begun to embrace her as one of their own. Osaka was born in Japan and represents that nation but grew up largely in New York and Florida.
“It feels kind of amazing to play in front of everyone again,” Osaka said after the match, “The energy here is unmatched.”
The U.S. Open is already getting backed up on its first day.
In a far cry from the blowouts which sometimes happen during the opening rounds of the tournament at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the two matches in the day session went the distance, delaying the start of the opening night ceremony and matches.
After Sloane Stephens beat Madison Keys in a third-set tiebreak, the No. 3 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas and 2012 champion Andy Murray played a contentious five-setter, lengthened a bit further by Tsitsipas’s repeated off-court breaks which incensed Murray.
Murray started the match well, and led in the second set tie-break before he lost his footing — and his lead — because his shoes were slippery. Though he won the third, Tsitsipas proved the better player down the stretch, though seemed to win few fans in the process.
Tsitsipas prevailed 2-6, 7-6(7), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Murray wasted little time in ending the handshake.
The four-hour, 49-minute win for Tsitsipas ended at 7:37 p.m., leaving thousands of fans with night session tickets waiting outside the gates.
The next match, between Marie Bouzkova and defending champion Naomi Osaka, is not expected to begin before 8:43 p.m.
As the first tennis balls were struck in earnest at the U.S. Open on Monday, thousands of frustrated tennis fans waited patiently to get inside for the first time in two years, stuck in a human traffic jam that left many feeling angry and sick in the hot sun.
When Madison Keys hit the first serve to her friend Sloane Stephens inside Arthur Ashe Stadium shortly after noon, there was hardly anyone there to see it. By the time Stephens held on to win, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (7), the world’s largest tennis arena was packed, but only after fans made their way through the backlog to catch the end of a captivating opening match.
It was an agonizing way to welcome back fans to the U.S. Open after a year off. But from a tennis point of view, it was a riveting kickoff to the tournament, with a rematch of the 2017 women’s final, which Stephens also won.
“It seems like it was a hundred years ago, not just four,” Keys said. “Yeah, the world is obviously a completely different place now as far as regular life goes. But then also with tennis, a lot has changed.”
The biggest change for the 2021 tournament is that the fans are in the stands. They had been excluded from the 2020 tournament because of the coronavirus pandemic. But it took many of them a lot longer to get back inside than they expected.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Betty Gruber, a fan from Chelmsford, Mass. “And then they let hundreds of people go right past us. I’m 82, and there are kids here and people who need to use the bathroom. It is very poorly organized.”
In the end it took more than two hours to clear out the backlog of people trying to enter. Some were lined up at the South Gate, joining the back of the queue hundreds of yards away, beyond the giant globe monument. Some lines of people intertwined with others and stewards did their best to control the flow amid the chaos as people complained and sweated in the midday sun.
But once inside they did all the things tennis fans have been doing at the U.S. Open for years, up until last year. They wandered the grounds, spent lavishly on food and cheered for their favorite players on a warm day that ultimately felt rather normal.
The announced attendance was 53,783 — 30,993 during the day session and 22,790 during the night session.
Maria Onuorah, 58, a nurse practitioner and her two daughters, Jessica and Chelsea, waited over an hour in line. After they got off the No. 7 train they were met instantly by a wall of people, already lined up on the wooden boardwalk bridge over to Flushing Meadows Park.
“At least we were able to see the last set,” Maria Onuorah said of the match between Stephens and Keys. “I’m glad we were able to finally get in because we came all the way from Atlanta to see it.”
One fan, who asked to be identified only as Harry, a software engineer from California, said that there were so many people on the bridge from the subway that at one point it began to shake and sway. He said he saw a handful of people, including his girlfriend, throw up.
“It was total mayhem,” he said. “I’ve been pretty Covid conscious this whole time and I didn’t appreciate being packed in with all these people in such close quarters.”
The United States Tennis Association issued a statement that said the delay was largely caused by crowds arriving later than they have in the past, and that the slowdown was centered on the bag check area.
“Patrons have brought an inordinate number of bags this year, all of which need to be searched. This becomes the main choke point for entry,” the U.S.T.A. statement said.
The U.S.T.A. added that it was looking into ways to avoid the problem in the coming days. It also said that the process to check proof of vaccinations seemed to work “smoothly” and did not contribute to the delay. Some fans agreed, but said part of the reason for that is because the process was not rigorous.
“They were looking at the cards, but they didn’t match them up with ID’s,” said Matt Stapleton, 61, a film industry transportation director from Long Island. He said he waited two hours to get inside the grounds but once he made it through the gates he said — surprisingly cheerfully — that it was well worth it.
“He’s always like that,” his wife, Linda, said with a laugh. “He’s just here to have fun.”
Most of the fans moved about without face coverings, but most of the workers wore masks. Originally, the tournament was not planning to require proof of vaccinations against the coronavirus, but after Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York intervened, tournament organizers changed the rules.
“I’m glad they did,” said Jessica Onuorah, a graduate student at Georgia State University. “I’m vaccinated, but I feel a lot safer knowing that everyone else is, too.”
Things really began moving along in the afternoon, just as they would in a normal year with no pandemic. The food concessionaires did a brisk business, fans ambled about the main plaza, sitting near the fountains, watching matches on the giant video screens, and crowds of people packed into the stands as they did in 2019, and each year for decades before that.
“We missed the people in the crowd,” said the 12th-seeded Simona Halep of Romania, who beat Camila Giorgi of Italy, 6-4, 7-6 (3), in their first-round match on the Grandstand court. “You cannot compare the atmosphere. It’s much better. You feel the energy. You feel alive on court.”
And once the day session ended, it all started up again at night.
It was opening day at the U.S. Open and Coco Gauff, the American 17-year-old, was back at Louis Armstrong Stadium, where she lost in the first round of last year’s tournament to the crafty Latvian Anastasija Sevastova.
What a difference a crowd makes.
Down a set on Monday, she fought through the nerves with plenty of loud and positive reinforcement and rallied to defeat Magda Linette of Poland 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 in 2 hours, 34 minutes.
“You guys really, really, really helped me today and it almost brings me to tears,” said Gauff, seeded 21st, as she began to choke up in her post-match interview. “With everything going on in the world, the support means a lot, so thank you guys for coming out.”
It was a message that was delivered often on Monday as fans returned to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center after not being permitted to attend the 2020 tournament or last week’s qualifying tournament.
Sloane Stephens paid the public a similar compliment on Monday after her tough three-set victory over Madison Keys, her friend and fellow American, in the opening match in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“To feel your guys’ energy,” Stephens said. “We missed all of that.”
Stephens, the 2017 U.S. Open women’s singles champion who is now unseeded, will likely be back in Ashe Stadium for her second-round match with Gauff. It will be their first meeting on tour.
But both had edgy moments on Monday. Stephens was two points from defeat when she trailed 3-5 in the third-set tiebreaker to Keys. Gauff, the highest-seeded American left in the women’s tournament, was down a set and an early break in the second set before rallying against Linette, a 29-year-old veteran who was the more potent force from the baseline. In the third set, Gauff took a 4-0 lead that Linette, after smashing her racket, whittled down to 4-3.
It was a choppy, momentum-swinging duel, with both players finishing with far more unforced errors than winners and Gauff making eight double faults.
But the crowd, which included the Olympic track and field gold medalist Sydney McLaughlin and Nets Coach Steve Nash in Gauff’s box, was unflagging in its support. Gauff held serve at 4-3 and then served for the match at 5-4 only to make a bad decision at 30-30, bailing out of a rally with a backhand drop shot that Linette easily reached and slapped for a winner. It was break point and Gauff hit a shaky second serve but then did one of the things she does so well: scramble and defend to extend a rally. Linette lined up a two-handed backhand, her best stroke, and missed it into the net.
Gauff took the hint, hitting a forehand winner on the next point and then closing out the victory with an acrobatic stab backhand volley winner off a strong passing shot.
“Honestly I just decided to stop worrying about the pressure,” Gauff said.
The Spanish veteran Carla Suárez Navarro confirmed Monday that the U.S. Open would be her last tournament, ending her career and a remarkable comeback.
Suárez Navarro lost her first-round match 6-2, 6-4 to Danielle Collins, an American seeded 26th, on Court 5. A year earlier, she had been undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, but ended her treatments in April and was able to return to competition at the French Open in May.
“I lost, but this year for me was a gift, you know?” she said. “Last year on this date, I don’t know if I can be here one more time or not, and I’m here. I’m happy for that.”
Suárez Navarro held her own upon returning to tour this year, taking a set off Sloane Stephens at the French Open and a set off top-seeded Ashleigh Barty, the eventual champion, at Wimbledon.
“I have dream when I was young, and it was to be a top-10 player in the world,” said Suárez Navarro, whose ranking peaked at sixth in 2016. “I think this is so difficult. Well, of course I have more dreams, but I never get them: I never won a Grand Slam. I never was No. 1 in the world — but this is so difficult.”
Suárez Navarro, who turns 33 on Friday, did not rule out representing Spain in the Billie Jean King Cup in November, if she is selected for the Spanish team.
Suárez Navarro reached the U.S. Open quarterfinals twice in her career, in 2013 and 2018. She picked her fourth-round win over Maria Sharapova in 2018 as her favorite U.S. Open memory. She added that she hoped she’d be remembered for her one-handed backhand, which is considered one of the most beautiful strokes in modern women’s tennis.
Suárez Navarro said she also hoped she’d be remembered for her kindness on the tour.
“I’m happy with the person and the player I have been during all these years,” she said.
The toughest of Monday’s opening matches at the U.S. Open went Simona Halep’s way. Halep, the 12th seed, posted a 6-4, 7-6 (3) victory over Camila Giorgi on the Grandstand court.
Halep, a two-time Grand Slam tournament champion, had not won a match since May after tearing a left calf muscle during the Italian Open in Rome. Afterward, she missed the French Open and her title defense at Wimbledon. She returned to the tour in Montreal this month, but lost her first match there to Danielle Collins and then pulled out of the Cincinnati Masters event before her second-round match against Jessica Pegula.
Giorgi’s recent form made her one of the least desirable opening-round draws among unseeded players.
Giorgi has been known for her power for years — she stunned sixth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki in the third round of the 2013 U.S. Open — but there have been as many misses as hits for most of her career. This summer, however, she won the WTA 1000 event in Montreal with a run through a loaded field. All six of her Montreal opponents — Elise Mertens, Nadia Podoroska, Petra Kvitova, Coco Gauff, Pegula and Karolina Pliskova — have reached at least the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam within the last year.
Giorgi surprisingly had an advantage in longer rallies against Halep’s counterpunching, winning 20 of the 35 exchanges that lasted five or more shots. But a string of unforced errors in the last three points derailed Giorgi’s chances, and sent Halep into the second round.
Another two-time Grand Slam event champion, Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain, won an opening match on Monday afternoon, on Armstrong. The ninth-seeded Muguruza defeated Donna Vekic, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5). Vekic is coached by Muguruza’s former coach, Sam Sumyk.
The first seeded player knocked out of the U.S. Open was No. 31 Yulia Putintseva, a quarterfinalist here last year, who fell, 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2, to the Estonian veteran Kaia Kanepi.
Kanepi, 36, has reached six Grand Slam quarterfinals in her career.
Fans entering the grounds of the U.S. Open faced long lines and heavy delays in the first hour of the tournament.
The tournament began Monday at 11 a.m. and fans were queuing from the moment they stepped out of the Willets Point subway station. Some said they had been in line for two hours.
Betty Gruber, from Chelmsford, Mass., was toward the back of the line and said she had been waiting 35 minutes with a long way to go before reaching the checkpoints.
“And then they let hundreds of people go right past us,” she said. “I’m 82, and there are kids here and people who need to use the bathroom. It is very poorly organized.”
Some of the delay could be because of the extra time required to check proof of coronavirus vaccinations. Tournament officials had not made that a requirement for entry until Friday, but fans like Gruber said they were vaccinated and carried their cards with them, anyway.
Fans lining up at the South entrance said they had joined the back of the line, which was behind the giant globe monument in Flushing Meadows Park, over an hour earlier. By 1:30 p.m. the bottleneck had cleared.
The United States Tennis Association released a statement saying that delays were largely caused by crowds arriving later than they have in the past, and that the slowdown was centered on the bag check area.
“Patrons have brought an inordinate number of bags this year, all of which need to be searched. This becomes the main choke point for entry,” the U.S.T.A. statement said.
Looking for some good matches on Monday, the first day of the U.S. Open? Naomi Osaka will open the defense of her women’s title to lead off the night session, and Andy Murray, the 2012 U.S. Open champion, will play third-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas in an afternoon match.
Here are previews of those matches and a few others to keep an eye on (all times are Eastern and approximate, except for Halep’s and Osaka’s).
Grandstand | 11 a.m.
Simona Halep vs. Camila Giorgi
Simona Halep, the 12th seed, pulled out of the Western & Southern Open this month citing a tear in her right abductor. A two-time major champion, Halep is a tough competitor when healthy, but multiple injuries this year kept her out of the French Open and Wimbledon.
Camila Giorgi, ranked 36th, is on an upswing, having won her first Masters 1000 event at the National Bank Open in August. Giorgi has an aggressive baseline game that will put Halep on defensive footing, and for both players it will be a proper test of their capabilities to make a deep run at the U.S. Open.
ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | 2 p.m.
Andy Murray vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas
Andy Murray, who won the U.S. Open in 2012, has struggled with injuries since 2018, playing on the tour intermittently between surgeries. Still, Murray has been able to compete well enough, reaching the third round at Wimbledon in July.
Stefanos Tsitsipas, the third seed, crashed out of Wimbledon in the first round after a charge to the finals at the French Open. His consistency is often challenged by experienced players, and he will be in for a grinding match against a three-time major tournament champion in their first meeting.
ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | 7 p.m.
Naomi Osaka vs. Marie Bouzkova
Naomi Osaka, the third seed, won the U.S. Open in 2018 and 2020, and will be looking to start her title defense with a convincing first-round victory. Osaka lost in the third round of the Olympics to the eventual silver medalist, Marketa Vondrousova. The disappointing result in Tokyo can surely be put behind her as she returns in front of the adoring crowds of New York.
Marie Bouzkova reached her second career WTA final in February on the hardcourts of Melbourne leading up to the Australian Open. A 23-year-old Czech, she won the girls’ U.S. Open title in 2014 but has not replicated that success on the pro tour. An upset against Osaka would be her biggest win.
ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM | 9 p.m.
Daniil Medvedev vs. Richard Gasquet
Daniil Medvedev, the second seed, will face off against Richard Gasquet, a veteran of the ATP Tour, to cap the night session at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Medvedev won the National Bank Open this month, and is a favorite to make the final on Sept. 12. Gasquet has not been past the third round of a major tournament since 2016, and an upset seems unlikely as Medvedev will look to repeat or better his finals run from 2019.
The first match in Arthur Ashe Stadium at this year’s U.S. Open is a star-studded rematch of the women’s singles final from four years ago. It is also a match between two unseeded players.
The 2017 women’s singles champion, Sloane Stephens, will face the 2017 runner-up, Madison Keys, on Monday at noon, an early meeting between close friends seeking traction as they slide in the rankings.
Stephens won that 2017 final, 6-3, 6-0, and greeted Keys at the net with a tight embrace. Keys joined Stephens’s celebration later that evening in Manhattan. Stephens’s steady counterpunching suffocated Keys, giving her only six unforced errors in the match. In her news conference afterward, Stephens joked Keys would cope with the loss well.
“She was in the finals, too, what do you mean? Did you see the check she’s about to get?” Stephens said, laughing. “I’m sure she’ll be just fine.”
Stephens won another meeting between the two Americans in the 2018 French Open semifinals. Keys has won two of their last three matches and scored her first win over Stephens on the way to a title in Charleston in 2019. That meeting came when both were ranked in the top 20; now, neither is in the top 40.
Stephens has the lower ranking of the two at No. 64, but is showing better form. She had a run in June to the fourth round of the French Open, where a lopsided loss to Barbora Krejcikova became less deflating when Krejcikova won the event.
Keys, ranked 41st, fell out of the top 30 this month for the first time in over six years, after losing the ranking points she had from her title at the Western & Southern Open near Cincinnati two years ago. This is her first time being unseeded at a Grand Slam event since she made a breakthrough run to the Australian Open semifinals in 2015.
Though North American hardcourts have been a happy hunting ground for Keys, she lost her first matches in San Jose, Montreal and Mason, Ohio, this summer, all in straight sets.
Surprisingly, given their shared prowess on hardcourts, the last four meetings between the two have been on clay, including two this year. Stephens beat Keys in Charleston in April, while Keys came back from a set down to beat Stephens in Rome.
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