The Sports Lowdown For All Your News and OpinionsOn an eventful opening day at the US Open, Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic both enjoyed a comfortable passage into the next round, as Rafael Nadal also progressed. However, there were a few upsets, as Ana Ivanovic and Kei Nishikori suffered early exits from the tournament.
As the early matches got underway, Ana Ivanovic had a potentially difficult opener against Dominika Cibulkova, and it proved just to be the case as even though the Serbian fought back from losing the first set, Cibulkova held on to record a 6-3 3-6 6-3 upset.
But, Serena Williams had little problems in her first round match, as the American was leading 6-0 2-0 when her opponent Vitalia Diatchenko was forced to retire with an injury. The world number one was joined in the next round by her sister Venus, after she needed three sets to overcome Monica Puig.
In addition, there were defeats for Sloane Stephens and Heather Watson, as the Brit was edged out in two tiebreak sets by Lauren Davis.
On the men’s side, Novak Djokovic cruised past Joao Souza with the loss of just three games, as Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Milos Raonic and Grigor Dimitrov recorded straight set wins. Rafael Nadal recovered from losing the third set to beat Borna Coric 6-3 6-2 4-6 6-4, and Marin Cilic opened the defence of his title with a comfortable victory.
However, Kei Nishikori suffered a shock loss to Frenchman Benoit Paire, as the Japanese player who was a finalist last year, squandered two match points in the fourth set tie-break to eventually go down 6-4 3-6 4-6 7-6 6-4. Also, David Ferrer progressed in four sets but Gael Monfils made an unfortunate exit, retiring with a back injury mid-way during his match against Illya Marchenko.
