NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Aryna Sabalenka came to the U.S. Open struggling and in danger of losing the No. 1 ranking.<\/p>\n
She heads to the third round looking every bit ready for a three-peat.<\/p>\n
The top-seeded Sabalenka overwhelmed Polina Iatcenko 6-1, 6-1 in 53 minutes on Wednesday night, putting on a power-hitting display that made it seem her recent problems are in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy with the level I played today, happy with the focus and happy to be through this match,\u201d Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n
A number of players have only finished one match.<\/p>\n
Another rainy afternoon in New York suspended play for a time on outside courts, allowing action only under the roofs in Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium to continue uninterrupted. So the players scheduled there avoided the starts and stops that others faced. <\/p>\n
Carlos Alcaraz was one, following Sabalenka with a 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Jaime Faria. The defending champion rebounded after dropping a set, which he didn\u2019t do until last year\u2019s final, by winning the next eight games to seize control.<\/p>\n
Jessica Pegula needed only 56 minutes to defeat Sofia Kenin 6-3, 6-1. Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion, beat Venus Williams in her first match.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be out of there in under an hour, it doesn\u2019t always happen,\u201d Pegula said. \u201cSo I think I\u2019m just going to take that one and run, I guess, until the next round.\u201d<\/p>\n
No. 8 seed Ben Shelton followed Pegula on Ashe and beat Hubert Hurkacz 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (3), 7-5, while No. 7 Daniil Medvedev raced past Sebastian Gorzny \u2014 except for a brief delay to protest the chair umpire\u2019s decision to replay a point when two birds sat on the net \u2014 6-3, 6-3, 7-5.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka says she was struggling but now feels better<\/p>\n
Sabalenka is trying to become the first player to win three in a row in Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams from 2012-14, but arrived after losing in the fourth round of her past three tournaments. She needs help to stay atop the WTA rankings even if she wins the title.<\/p>\n
She won 15 of 16 points on first serve in the first set and only dropped off a little in the second, finishing 21 for 28 in the match, against an opponent who is playing in her first Grand Slam tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I struggled a little bit in the middle of the season. Once again, I\u2019m not going to defend myself or explain why, what happened, but I\u2019m happy with my level,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cI can definitely say that mentally I\u2019m way stronger than I was in the middle of the season, and physically I also feel stronger. So I feel like I\u2019m on my level of play.\u201d<\/p>\n
A three-day first round stretches into a fourth<\/p>\n
When the U.S. Open switched to a Sunday start last year, it spread out the first round over the first three days, so Wednesday would have arrived with everyone playing in the second round had the weather cooperated.<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Alex de Minaur, the No. 6 seed from Australia, said with all the juggling his match was moved twice from the court where he was originally scheduled. He finally started his U.S. Open on Wednesday on Court 11 and beat Italy\u2019s Andrea Guerrieri 6-2, 6-2, 6-4.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a couple tough days. But I mean, these tournaments, it\u2019s all about adapting and that\u2019s the name of the game,\u201d de Minaur said. \u201cThere\u2019s too much to play for to let something like this affect you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paula Badosa said she didn\u2019t even know how to prepare for the resumption of her match against Daria Kasatkina, which was halted Tuesday with her one game from winning to set up a second-round match against No. 4 Coco Gauff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know if I was going to play just two points or six, or I don\u2019t know how much, how many I play or one more set,\u201d the Spaniard said Wednesday after finishing off her 6-1, 6-4 victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I knew that if I was winning this match, I\u2019m playing the next day. So, yeah, it was everything a bit different. I was very nervous that I even couldn\u2019t eat, so a lot of different stuff I did today, but sometimes it is how it is, and I tried to play with the things I had there.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least she got through. No. 12 Rafael Jodar, the 19-year-old from Spain who came in after a strong summer, was routed 6-2, 6-1, 6-1 by Bu Yunchaokete of China when his first-round match was finally completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it wasn\u2019t going to be easy because I was waiting a lot yesterday and today as well, but it is what it is,\u201d Jodar said. \u201cWe cannot control the rain, so it\u2019s difficult for both players.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first round was finally completed late Wednesday, a day when 25 men\u2019s singles matches were scheduled to get the tournament back on track.<\/p>\n
Alex Michelsen pulled off an upset in one of them by ousting fellow American Brandon Nakashima, the No. 16 seed, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4. No. 11 Frances Tiafoe beat Japanese qualifier Rei Sakamoto in straight sets, and Argentina\u2019s Mariano Navone backed up his upset of Novak Djokovic by beating Matteo Berrettini 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (4).<\/p>\n
Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova and runner-up Karolina Muchova advanced to the third round, while No. 11 Marta Kostyuk got past 2017 U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens 6-1, 7-5. No. 31 seed Leylah Fernandez set up a matchup of past U.S. Open runners-up against Pegula, with the winner to meet either No. 16 Sorana Cirstea or No. 19 Jasmine Paolini.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here <\/p>\n
Brian Mahoney, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Aryna Sabalenka came to the U.S. Open struggling and in danger of losing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":881864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-881863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}