Konta beaten 4-6 6-3 6-4 by world number 78 Krunic
Edmund beats 32nd seed Haase 6-3 7-5 6-3
Qualifier Norrie through after Tursunov retires when trailing 7-6 (9-7) 6-1
Watson loses 6-4 6-4 to Cornet; Muguruza & Kvitova through
Halep lost to Sharapova
British round up
Andy Murray shocked everyone by pulling out of the 2017 US Open the day before the tournament started, nursing a sore hip and a few doubts about his immediate future. Johanna Konta matched him on day one, losing in three nervous sets to Aleksandra Krunic, ranked 71 places below the seventh seed and who admits she is “not the hardest worker” in the game.
So, for the second time this year, Konta has gone out of a slam in the first round, blowing a first-set lead each time. Losing to the world No109, Su-wei Hsieh, at Roland Garros did not seem to do lasting damage; this defeat may give Konta more reason to worry about her nerves, which she has fought so hard to banish over the past couple of years.
If she is to deliver on her own high expectations she will need to find more consistency and calmness under pressure. Mostly that has not been a problem since she broke into the top 10 but she began this campaign as one of eight players in with a shout of finishing the fortnight as world No1 and leaves it as the first major casualty.
She began as commandingly as a seventh seed should, racing to a 4-1 lead before scrabbling around to hold the first set. From then on it was a non-stop struggle against an artful opponent who grew in confidence with every point. At one stage Konta was landing less than four of 10 first serves in the box and she won only half of those points. She saved eight of 13 break points before the diminutive Muscovite, who lives with her grandparents in Serbia, wrapped it up 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
When she was on the brink of elimination Konta held for 4-5 to give herself a sliver of hope. She then saved one of three match points before getting the angle wrong on her final crosscourt backhand.
Billie Jean King said before the tournament that Britain’s No1 was “on the brink” of doing big things. “When someone like says that it’s incredibly humbling,” Konta said before this match. “I do believe in my own ability although I’m aware there are no easy matches.” More aware than ever now.
“I feel amazing,” said Krunic, who had not beaten a top-10 player since making the fourth round here three years ago. “She’s an awesome player so I had to be at my best from the first point. She’s a very intense player. We can all play forehands and backhands, but I had to get my act together. I’m not the best server on tour. I almost serve under the net. And I’m not the hardest worker. I was brave enough to make some winners.”
Heather Watson is also going home early again from a tournament she loves but struggles to do well in. She was well up for the fight, an overcooked forehand costing her a close first set against Alizé Cornet. She played soundly in most of the exchanges but her forehand let her down when she most needed it. One drifted long to give her French opponent match point, Watson shoved her final shot of the tournament into the tramlines and the job was done, 6-4, 6-4.
In the men’s draw Kyle Edmund resists any suggestion he is carrying Britain’s hopes at Flushing Meadows in Murray’s absence. Nevertheless, after a good three-set win on day one over the accomplished Dutchman Robin Haase, he looks as if he will give a creditable account of himself. He is Britain’s second best male player and has a chance here to prove that there is more to come.
Edmund revealed later an occasional swig of Coke between games helped his energy levels. “The challenge was to keep the intensity high because I felt pretty tired,” he said “It was about my demeanour and mentality. It worked. I have played a lot recently. I needed it to get myself going. I’m happy with my game.”
So he should be. Edmund is in a reasonable quarter of the draw in the half opposite the obvious favourites, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. It is a card now splintered beyond repair by the withdrawal of five of the leading 11 men and, after a good run of form, Edmund has every right to believe that his power tennis can carry him beyond the first weekend. The lingering problem with Edmund has been a curious stamina deficit after blistering starts. That was not the case on Monday.
Haase double-faulted with his last effort of the opening match on Court 10, which lasted just under two hours, and the small clutch of enthusiastic British supporters rose to acclaim Edmund’s 6-3, 7-5, 6-3 result.
Edmund had to soak up 13 aces and did well in all the pressure moments. His own big serve clicked well when he needed it – he could be pleased with a 74 per cent win ratio on first serve – and his ground strokes were, in the main, precise and well chosen. He was comfortable at the net, too, winning the point in 15 of 22 visits. Haase had seven chances to break but took only one of them.
In the second round on Wednesday Edmund plays the unseeded Steve Johnson, who took an hour and 24 minutes to put out the Spanish clay-courter Nicolas Almagro, 6-4, 7-6 (2), 7-6 (5), on the Grandstand Court. Edmund beat the aggressive American 5-7, 5-3, 6-3 on his way to the semi-finals at Winston-Salem last week –having lost their first encounter two years ago at the Australian Open – so he will not need to do a lot of homework on his game.
Edmund’s will be a less demanding assignment, probably, than the one awaiting Britain’s latest acquisition from abroad, Cameron Norrie. The New Zealand-raised, American-college-nurtured son of a Scottish father and Welsh mother has a delightfully artistic game and it was too much for the veteran Russian Dmitiry Tursonov, who had nothing much left to contribute after a tough first set and a one-sided second session, retiring injured.
Norrie was worth his abbreviated 7-6 (7), 6-1 win, and next plays the 12th seed, Pablo Carreno Busta, who beat the American qualifier Evan King 6-3, 6-2, 7-6 (5) in just over two hours, the final set taking up nearly half of that.
Russian beats No2 seed 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 at Flushing Meadows
Win comes on Sharapova’s first appearance in New York since drugs ban
Maria Sharapova was back in black: in a lace-topped, sparkling diamante outfit that nodded to Audrey Hepburn’s dress in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, one of the Russian’s favourite films. And there was just enough substance alongside the showbiz dazzle on her return to New York for the game’s enduring diva to overpower Simona Halep, the world No2, for the seventh time in a row, as she moved into the second round to keep this US Open at fever pitch.
Her 10th match in 19 months – for reasons obvious to all but aliens – delivered much of the old imperious strut over the two hours and 24 minutes it took her to complete a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 win. It was a performance that mixed brilliance and vulnerability in front of a goggle-eyed gathering on the tournament’s showcase court, Arthur Ashe. In 18 night matches in New York, Sharapova has never lost. She loves a big stage.
Sharapova created an extraordinary 22 break points, many of them with 28 forehand winners, but failed to convert 17 of them. There were 64 unforced errors to go with the ones that raised the cheers. The rust remains and, on Wednesday, the unseeded Hungarian, Timea Babos, who earlier saw off Switzerland’s Viktorija Golubic 7-5, 5-7, 7-5 on Court 15, gets her chance to see if Sharapova can back it up in the second round.
This, though, was a first-round match that felt like a final, Sharapova’s first grand slam appearance since she lost in the quarter-finals of the 2016 Australian Open, the tournament where all her troubles began. These championships, though, had leaked stars at an alarming rate even before a ball was struck on Monday; New York – and tennis, perhaps – needed her like a shipwrecked sailor needs a passing ship.
She had a little cry into her hands, then said courtside, “I thought this was going to be just another match but it was so much more. I didn’t want to think about it. You can’t really control your emotions. We some times wonder why we put in all the work. And this is exactly why. There have been a few low points, but I don’t think this is the time to talk about that. Behind all this glitter, this girl has a lot of grit, and she’s going nowhere.”
For long spells in the first set, the ball came off her racket with the vigour that rivals and fans have become accustomed to since she first caught admiring glances at Wimbledon 13 years ago. She is 30 now and the glory days might be numbered, but she retains her ice-cool charisma, her chilling scream and the death stare that could fell an ox.
Of course, there was the baggage: plenty of players in the locker room still resent the favours her celebrity brings, a wildcard here into the final major of the season that goes against the sentiment that barred her from Roland Garros and granted her only a qualifying spot at Wimbledon – which she did not take up, in the end, as her body creaked in the early stages of the comeback from her 15-month drugs ban.
Halep said before play here, “The tournament decided [to give Sharapova a wildcard], so they can do anything they want. Is not my position to talk about this. I think she’s OK.”
But the issue surely will die slowly now. It is history, if of the unsavoury kind. For all the latent resentment and piety bubbling in the background, Sharapova, winner of five slams, ought to be allowed to make what she can of the rest of her career.
Cynics will say she is using the game as a mere commercial platform; well, she always has done. What she remains is perhaps the toughest fighter in tennis during her era. And certainly she has the wheels, despite injuries that have struck since she returned in April: in nearly all of the 221 points contested in this match, she scampered with puppy-like enthusiasm, treating lost causes and winners alike.
The noisy crowd got into the entertainment the way they know best in this city, sensing the tension rising as Sharapova let her racket slice the warm night air. Alison Hughes, the British umpire, had her work cut out keeping them in order.
Halep needed a swinging clutch serve down the T to hang on after 18 minutes but got Sharapova another look and chipped away until her drowning opponent cracked on the fourth break point, helpless to even move towards a sizzling forehand, her 15th clean winner. After 28 minutes, they had played just four games, and Sharapova owned three of them. She broke again for 4-2, as Halep’s serve disintegrated. This was grinding of the highest order.
Sharapova’s second serve invariably had too much kick for 5ft 6in Halep, and it was only the Russian’s occasional errors going for the line off the ground that kept it close. However, a third double fault handed Halep another break point, and she took it, held through deuce to level in the eighth game as Sharapova’s racket grew reckless, before she brought the set to a close in just under an hour with yet another stunning forehand winner.
She was 4-1 in the second set, two games away from the fairytale comeback – and then wobbled alarmingly. Her composure crumbled and she lost five games in a row, squandering five break points in the 10th game as Halep held to keep the match alive.
Sharapova took a wardrobe break that was as strategic as much as fashion-driven, returning for the third set with the same dress but sporting a matching black card-player’s shade. The light, of course, had not changed – but the momentum had.
Slowly then with building inevitability, the deciding set and the match got away from Halep, whose gift for collapsing can be a painful sight. There was fight in her, without complete conviction, it seemed. Those previous defeats were her unspoken enemy now. She held for 3-5 and Sharapova stepped up to the service line to finish her off. She had to save break point before Halep put one more return long.
The packed stands could hardly have asked for more. Mostly, they loved her, rising to welcome her back – although there are some who never will, who cannot forgive her. However, as Brian Wilson wrote: “... She’s still dancing in the night, unafraid of what a dude’ll do in a town full of heroes and villains.”
