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      Serena Williams’s Next Opponent Is a Struggling Anett Kontaveit

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      They will face off in a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium on Wednesday, a venue that feels like home to Williams even if it has not always been a haven.At nearly 41 years of age, Serena Williams would seem to have seen it all in tennis, but the new experiences keep coming in what she has suggested — but coyly not quite confirmed — will be her final tournament.Since returning to the tour in June after nearly a year’s absence, she has played five singles matches: four of them against opponents she had never faced.More novelty lies ahead on Wednesday night in the second round of the U.S. Open when she will play her first career match against Anett Kontaveit, the No. 2 seed.They will face off in a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium, a venue that feels like home to Williams even if it has not always been a haven.Kontaveit, a 26-year-old Estonian whose international profile is not nearly as high as her ranking, has surely never experienced anything quite like what awaits her on Wednesday. But she sounds more excited than daunted.“I’m going to fight as hard as I can for every point and really enjoy the atmosphere of being out there against the greatest player of all time,” she said. “I think it’s such a great opportunity.” Kontaveit is the highest-ranked player in history from Estonia, the northernmost of the three Baltic States. But she is not Estonia’s first elite women’s singles player. Kaia Kanepi, 37, reached her first Grand Slam singles quarterfinal in 2008 at the French Open and has been to six more, most recently, in a big surprise, at this year’s Australian Open.Kontaveit, a ferocious ball-striker with a powerful serve, has made it to only one Grand Slam quarterfinal at this stage, which helps explain her relative anonymity. But she did break new ground for Estonia by reaching the championship match of last year’s WTA Finals, the tour’s prestigious year-end event, losing to Garbiñe Muguruza of Spain.That run boosted Kontaveit’s ranking, but her best results have come in lower-tier events and often indoors: no surprise considering Estonia’s long winters. Though she has often trained in Britain and was once described by the country’s Daily Telegraph as “an honorary Briton with a cut-glass” English accent (presumably a compliment), she still lives in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, in an elegant modern apartment that she has decorated with plants and some of her own handmade pottery.“She does get recognized in the street, and she has a lot of fans in Estonia for sure,” said Torben Beltz, the veteran German coach who joined her team in June before Wimbledon.Kontaveit, a prodigy who won the Estonian women’s singles title at age 13, received instruction from her mother Ülle Milk in her formative years. But she has had a series of prominent international coaches on tour: working with the Dutchman Glenn Schaap; the Briton Nigel Sears; and Dmitry Tursunov, a straight-talking and deep-thinking former tour player from Russia who was instrumental in Aryna Sabalenka’s rise into the top three and then Kontaveit’s.But Tursunov and Kontaveit ended their partnership this spring. Kontaveit attributed the split to Tursunov’s Russian nationality making it complicated for him to secure visas and travel with her consistently on tour after the nation’s invasion of Ukraine, but that did not keep Tursunov from being quickly rehired for a trial run by Emma Raducanu, the 19-year-old British star.Though Kontaveit reached the final of the Qatar Open in February, this has been a trying season. She said she contracted Covid-19 in late April and withdrew from the Madrid Open and said she struggled physically when she returned to the tour.“We all know she had long Covid kind of,” Beltz said. “She was not fit, but she’s very close again to get this back and is playing better in practice really well now. So I think it’s coming.”This will be Kontaveit’s first match with Williams but not the first match Beltz will coach against Williams. He previously worked with Angelique Kerber when she faced Williams in a series of major matches, including the 2016 Australian Open final that Kerber won and the 2016 Wimbledon final that Kerber lost.“I’ve been scouting her for a long time,” Beltz said with a laugh. “Every tournament when you play good you have to scout Serena, because you know your player may have to face her. But it’s great to face a champion, I think. It’s going to be a good match tomorrow.”Kontaveit reached the final of the Qatar Open but lost to Iga Swiatek of Poland.Noushad Thekkayil/EPA, via ShutterstockBeltz scouted Williams this time from afar by watching on television when she defeated Danka Kovinic of Montenegro on Monday night in an extraordinary atmosphere at Ashe Stadium.“I couldn’t get a ticket,” Beltz said. “This is the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in women’s tennis. I think it’s the greatest thing for the sport, and we all have to thank Serena for all she did. Especially right now with the end coming.”Though Williams has struggled since her return to the tour in June, winning just two of her five singles matches, Beltz could see progress against Kovinic.“I think her ball speed, serve and return is really up to her prime time,” Beltz said of Williams. “I saw her other matches, and it looks like she’s improved over the last couple of weeks. She looks in better shape and looks good now. For Anett, I think the key is to just go out and try to play her best tennis but also enjoy the moment. It’s going to be a big challenge, a great challenge, but I think she wants that challenge and wants to embrace it.”Remarkably, she may get to embrace the challenge twice in Williams’s farewell U.S. Open. Kontaveit and Shelby Rogers, her American partner, could also face Williams and her sister Venus in the second round of the women’s doubles tournament. More

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      With Upset Over Taylor Fritz, Brandon Holt Is Making a Name for Himself

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      Holt, a qualifier who inherited tennis skills from his mother, the U.S. Open winner Tracy Austin, and his other pastime — music — from his father, is putting together a tidy run at the tournament.As the son of a famous tennis champion, Brandon Holt is often asked what he has taken from his mother, Tracy Austin, who won the United States Open twice. Did he inherit his service return from her? Did she bequeath her court savvy to her son?Some of his tennis skill set does derive from his mother, and some of it is his own. But what did Holt get from his father, Scott Holt?“His musical taste,” Brandon Holt said, and for the rising tennis star, that is something very precious.Ever since Holt, 24, rolled his ankle in his sophomore year at the University of Southern California and was forced to spend significant time away from tennis, he has become an avid guitar player, borrowing from his dad’s record collection to strum along with the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, Oasis, Pink Floyd and more.The guitar was something he picked up to get away from the mind-numbing magnetism of social media during his rehabilitation. He bought a guitar and learned chords and songs from the internet.“Every time I felt the urge to go on Instagram or something, I would pick up the guitar,” he said. “And I fell in love with it. Now it goes wherever I go.”Holt was too exhausted after his record-breaking upset win over the No. 10 seed, Taylor Fritz, on Monday to play later that night. In his hotel room on Tuesday morning, he grabbed his instrument and started jamming, just like any other day on tour, as long as the doctors allow it.Several months ago, Holt was recovering from a hand injury that temporarily jeopardized his career. He found he could strum the guitar, but picking the strings hurt his hand. He asked his surgeon if he could still pick through the pain.“He said, ‘That depends,’” Holt recalled. “‘Do you want to be a professional tennis player or a professional musician?’”The answer to that question is affirmatively the former. Holt is having the tournament of his life, piling career-best win on top of career-best win to reach the second round of the U.S. Open. If he can beat Pedro Cachin of Argentina, who is ranked No. 66 in the world, on Wednesday, Holt would become the first man with a wild-card entry into the qualifying rounds of the U.S. Open to reach the third round of the main draw.In other words, the U.S. Open gifted him the opportunity to compete in the pretournament qualifying rounds, which meant that he would then have to win three matches just to get into the main draw. He did that for the first time in his young career and then stunned Fritz in four sets.Holt, left, beat his friend, the No. 10 seed, Taylor Fritz, to advance to the second round.Frank Franklin Ii/Associated PressHe is the first wild-card qualifier to beat a top-10 seed, men or women, and the second man to win a match in the main draw. He did it by beating Fritz, an old friend — they have played against one another in Southern California since before they were 10 — who had designs on winning the U.S. Open.Fritz is also 24, but he has been playing in major tournaments for seven years. Quicker to develop professionally, Fritz was always helpful to Holt as they played against one another in their youths and trained together over the years. Fritz acted almost as a mentor while Holt bided his time. When they were young, Fritz invariably won their matches, but there was nothing weird about the tables turning as they did on Monday.“No, that’s not the right word,” Holt said. “I felt really happy, maybe just, I don’t know, stress relief. Sometimes, you want something so bad, and you want it to end so that it comes true, and when it happens, it just feels so good.”Holt’s gradual development has allowed him to surface into the thick of the U.S. Open eight years older than his mother was when she first won the U.S. Open as a 16-year-old phenom, seeded third, in 1979. Holt, who came into the qualifying rounds ranked No. 303, went to regular schools, avoided the grind of international travel as a teenager and spent four years in college with strong (free) coaching, top nutrition and training facilities (also free).“He really liked being a normal kid,” said David Nainkin, the lead men’s national coach for United States Tennis Association player development. “He’s got a strong family background, and he’s just taken his time and gotten a little better and a little better over time.”Austin remains a part of her son’s coaching staff and occasionally makes critical suggestions, Nainkin said, like a recent footwork adjustment that added 10 miles per hour to his serve. Nainkin added that Holt, always a smart player, has also taken a quantum leap in self-analysis of his game during his time at the U.S. Open.“He’s improved in just the nine days that he has been here,” Nainkin said.Tracy Austin won the U.S. Open twice and is now watching her son Brandon try to do the same.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesAlso, he is devouring newfound information about his opponents, statistics he had never had access to before. The U.S. Open is the first tournament Holt has played in which in-depth technical data is available on all players — from groundstroke speed to first-serve tendencies.Nainkin also believes that Holt’s pathway to the professional ranks has been enhanced by his maturity and independence. Before he was granted the wild card into qualifying, Holt traveled the world by himself — no parent, no coach, no manager — playing in Tunisia, Mexico, Ecuador, Britain and the Dominican Republic and ranked as low as No. 924.His only traveling partner was his guitar, a 2.5-pound semi-acoustic that he plugs into his computer and listens through headphones. Holt packs the guitar into his luggage and sets it in the corner of his hotel room and plays it every day, sometimes for two hours at a time, before he catches himself, lest he develop hand cramps while playing barre chords.Although he was drawn to his father’s musical tastes, neither of his parents plays an instrument, he said. His grandmother on his father’s side is an accomplished pianist, and sometimes they play together. Holt’s favorite song to play is one that could apply to all his friends and family members who could not make the journey to New York to witness his breakout tournament.“‘Wish You Were Here’ by Pink Floyd,” he said. “If there is only one song I could play for the rest of my life, it would be that one.”Luckily, there are no such restrictions. Holt is showing he can play a lot more than just that. More

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      Defending U.S. Open Champion Emma Raducanu Loses in the First Round

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      Raducanu, who won the U.S. Open women’s singles title as a qualifier without dropping a set last year, fell to Alizé Cornet in straight sets.Emma Raducanu, who won last year’s U.S. Open as a little-known 18-year-old qualifier without losing a single set, will not defend her title this year after losing in the first round to Alizé Cornet on Tuesday night.For Cornet, a 32-year-old Frenchwoman ranked No. 40, the win, 6-3, 6-3, was her second major surprise victory of the year after she upset No. 1 Iga Swiatek in straight sets in the third round of Wimbledon. Cornet achieved the best Grand Slam result of her career earlier this year at the Australian Open, where she reached the quarterfinals before losing to Danielle Collins, who went on to reach the final.For Raducanu, now 19, the loss came in what has been a challenging year for her in Grand Slam tournaments. Raducanu reached only the second round at each of the first three majors, losing to Danka Kovinic at the Australian Open, Aliaksandra Sasnovich at the French Open and Caroline Garcia at Wimbledon.“I’m sorry I beat her tonight but I’m really happy with my performance,” Cornet said on the court after the match. “I felt like I played a really solid match, I was fighting my heart out and hanging in there. I think my game at the net was pretty good, I think it was a bit of everything, playing with a bit of variation, and it definitely worked tonight.”Alizé Cornet of France celebrating after defeating Raducanu.Elsa/Getty ImagesCornet and Raducanu stepped into a breezy Louis Armstrong Stadium on Tuesday as the American flag hanging above the court moved swiftly from the start of the match through the end. They played before a modest crowd on a night that featured Rafael Nadal on the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium at the same time.“Alizé’s defense was pretty good,” Raducanu said after the match, with a hat over her eyes. “I thought she was just scrapping everything back. There were junk balls in the middle of the court. With the wind blowing around, it was really difficult. She just kept getting it back.”Raducanu added that she thought she wasn’t going for as many balls because of the windy conditions.The match got off to a close start, with each player splitting the first six games. Then, down 4-3 in the first set, Raducanu failed to tie up the set on her serve, double faulting to bring the match to 5-3.Up 40-30 in the next game, Cornet threw her arms up into the air, calling for cheers from a crowd that had been supporting Raducanu from the beginning. Cornet went on to take the set, 6-3, with a forehand winner.The set was the first Raducanu had dropped in her career at the U.S. Open.“I’m going to drop down the rankings and climb my way back up,” she said. “In a way the target will be off my back slightly. I just have another chance to claw my way back up there.”After the first set, a medical trainer was called onto the court, and appeared to be treating Raducanu’s right hand. Raducanu struggled with blisters earlier this year.Raducanu said she has been dealing with blisters while in the United States, adding that it could be because of the humidity in some cities along the tour.“You tape it up and move on it,” she said. “It’s a blister — not much you can do about it. It is what it is. Sometimes these things happen in these conditions.”Cornet took the first game of the second set, and Raducanu took the next game, and then another, winning the final point with an ace.Then down 40-15, Cornet decided to go with a drop shot that Raducanu could not reach, but Raducanu came back quickly, winning the next point to go up 3-1.Cornet pushed the set to 3-2 with a backhand winner, and she then tied the set at three games apiece without giving up any points. Cornet took the next game to go up 4-3, as Raducanu lost the break with a backhand unforced error into the net.As she stepped back onto the court, down 4-3, Raducanu looked up into the crowd as if she were searching for someone or something. The crowd responded with several people yelling “c’mon, Emma.”Serving at 4-3, Cornet took the next game, with Raducanu hitting into the net on the final point.Raducanu failed to extend the match on her serve. Down 40-30, Raducanu hit a backhand volley out, giving Cornet the win.The match would have been significant for Cornet even if she had lost. This year’s U.S. Open is Cornet’s 63rd consecutive appearance in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament, a record streak in the Open era that started at the 2007 Australian Open, where she lost in the first round.While the U.S. Open is the last Grand Slam of the year, Raducanu said she will consider playing in other tournaments.“It could be exciting for me to start my kind of climb back up there,” she said. “How far can I go till the end of year?” More

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      Serena Williams Fans Flock to the First Match of Her Final US Open

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      A star-studded crowd inside Arthur Ashe Stadium was joined by throngs of fans outside during Williams’s first-round U.S. Open match.The public address system went quiet, and a pause ensued as people strained toward the player tunnel to get their first peek of the champion everyone had been waiting for.Serena Williams, dressed in a sparkling jacket with a cape flowing from her waist, walked out to ear-shattering applause as her daughter, Olympia, joined thousands of fans pointing cameras at her mom in the middle of Arthur Ashe Stadium.An announcer introduced her as “the greatest of all time,” and a record-setting U.S. Open crowd of 29,402 roared in agreement.Williams, despite the shattering noise, maintained her focus as she walked purposefully to her seat and began preparing for the spectacle ahead — the first match in what is expected to be Williams’s last U.S. Open, her last major tournament.“The crowd was crazy,” Williams said in an on-court ceremony to honor her afterward. “It really helped pull me through.”The night had the same kind of electric feel to it as so many other highly anticipated and buzzworthy tennis events before it, from Billie Jean King’s bedazzling grudge match with Bobby Riggs to Pete Sampras’s U.S. Open final against Andre Agassi. But even those may not have been quite as deafening.“I think when I walked out, the reception was really overwhelming,” Williams said. “It was loud, and I could feel it in my chest. It was a really good feeling. It’s a feeling I’ll never forget … Yeah, that meant a lot to me.”A host of celebrities — including a former president of the United States, a one-time heavyweight boxing champion of the world and many former tennis greats, like King and Martina Navratilova — watched along with thousands of tennis fans inside the stadium and out, all hoping Williams would win Monday’s match and continue playing.Bill Clinton sat next to Dr. Ruth Westheimer. Mike Tyson sat alongside Navratilova. Gladys Knight was there, Queen Latifah read a poem in homage of Williams, Spike Lee helped conduct the pregame coin toss, and Oprah Winfrey narrated a video played after the match for Williams.Williams certainly did her part, too, overcoming some early nerves to defeat Danka Kovinic of Montenegro, 6-3, 6-3, under the lights to reach the second round — meaning it all happens again on Wednesday against No. 2 Anett Kontaveit of Estonia.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesOn Monday, Williams looked far better than she had in previous matches this summer and seemed energized by the moment, and the crowd. Kovinic, ranked No. 80, said it was so loud, not only could she not hear the ball coming off Williams’s racket, she couldn’t hear it coming off her own strings at times.“On the outside courts we don’t have this experience,” she said. But Kovinic, who smiled amiably during the unusually long prematch introductions, handled her part with aplomb.Even as fans focused on Williams, many were also captivated by Olympia, her 4-year-old daughter, who wore a similar black outfit with sparkles. Olympia had beads in her hair, evoking when her mother wore beads as a player.“She asks to wear beads a lot,” Williams said. “It actually wasn’t my idea, but I was so happy when she had them on. It’s perfect on her.”After the match, a ceremony was held to honor Williams, an unusual departure for the first-round match. Williams had announced earlier this month that she intends to retire from tennis to concentrate on her family, her spiritual life and other ventures. But as King said during the ceremony, “You are just beginning.” It could have referred to both Williams’s future outside of tennis and her journey in this tournament, which has already been defined with her imprint.“I’m just not even thinking about that,” she said. “I’m just thinking about this moment. I think it’s good for me just to live in the moment now.”While inside the stadium the two players hammered balls from the baseline in front of a nervous but expectant crowd, the grounds outside the arena walls were crowded with an overflow audience of people unable to find tickets to get in.Instead, they watched on the big video screen overlooking the fountains in the main plaza, and cheered along with roughly 25,000 on the inside, as long as they could see the images from where they stood.“The screen needs to be bigger,” said Zandra Bucheli, an architect from San Francisco. Her brother, Jorge Hernandez, from Long Beach, N.Y. — and an architect, as well — said that despite not getting inside the stadium, his family members were still enjoying the scene in the plaza.“It’s just over the wall,” he said. “And the atmosphere out here is good. You get a feel for it.”The Gray family, from Bowie, Md., drove four hours to watch Monday’s matches and planned to drive back home after it was all over.“I’m extremely excited,” said Anita Gray, whose two sons, Cody, 12, and Coy, 14, play competitive tennis and train at the Tennis Center in College Park, Md., where the 26th-ranked Frances Tiafoe first honed his game. The boys’ father, Rory V. Gray, has been coming to the U.S. Open since 1993 and said he would watch Williams and her sister Venus working out on the back courts at the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center with their father, Richard Williams. They were both schoolgirls at the time, and virtually no one else was there watching with him.It was a far different scene on Monday when Serena Williams practiced before the night match. Hundreds of fans waited patiently for her to appear at about 6:15 p.m. for a half-hour warm up. As soon as she emerged into view, the fans began to scream and cheer while a dozen cameras followed Williams to the door of the courts.Fans outside of Arthur Ashe Stadium as Serena Williams’s match was about to begin.Peter Foley/EPA, via ShutterstockWhen her practice session ended, the fans applauded again, and Williams lifted her racket to acknowledge their cheers as she walked off with Rennae Stubbs, her coach. Not long after, she was making her grand entrance into Ashe Stadium.“I don’t know if she can win it all,” said Shayla Veasley, a certified athletic trainer from Harlem. “But I’m hoping for at least a run to the semis. We just want to see more of her.”Menuarn Burns, 74, a retiree from Shreveport, La., said she felt lucky to have tickets for the match, which she had been anticipating for days. She admires and respects Williams, but she said she would not be sad when the great champion is finally gone from the tennis tour.“Everyone has to grow old,” she said. “She’s earned a chance to move on to something else.” More

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      Serena Williams Rises to the Occasion, Like So Many Times Before

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      Williams met a valedictory night at the U.S. Open with a win that was fitting, and with a second-round match on Wednesday, the farewell party at Arthur Ashe Stadium continues.It was an opening night at the U.S. Open that could have been the closing night of Serena Williams’s 27-year professional singles career.But win or lose, Williams was getting the ceremonial treatment in Arthur Ashe Stadium. The guest list and laudatory tone were set; the protocol and the videos narrated by Queen Latifah and Oprah Winfrey were in place.It felt closer to a rock concert than a first-round tennis match as Williams walked into the sold-out stadium where she has experienced triumph and heartache in fairly equal measure only to be greeted this time by perhaps the loudest extended roar of support she has experienced in her nearly 41 years.“Really overwhelming,” Williams said. “I could feel it in my chest, and it was a really good feeling. It’s a feeling I will never forget and that meant a lot to me.”Williams and the CBS journalist Gayle King after the match.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesIt was the message and gift that the crowd of nearly 24,000 in Ashe Stadium clearly wanted to deliver with Williams nearing the finish line.A loss to the 80th-ranked Danka Kovinic would have been no surprise. Williams has struggled with her movement and timing since returning to action in June after nearly a one-year hiatus.In her early comeback tournaments, she had looked late to the ball and late to the realization that time is undefeated. In her last match before the U.S. Open, she was beaten, 6-4, 6-0, in the first round of the Western and Southern Open in Mason, Ohio, by a player less than half her age: 19-year-old Emma Raducanu, last year’s big-surprise U.S. Open women’s singles champion.New York, despite the valedictory mood, was in danger of becoming a downer, and Williams was hardly reassuring in the early going against Kovinic as she went down a service break with double faults and unforced errors piling up.But with Kovinic serving and just one point away from a 4-2 first-set lead, Williams struck a backhand return that landed on the outside edge of the baseline for a winner that got her back to deuce.Serena Williams’s Farewell to TennisThe U.S. Open could be the tennis star’s last professional tournament after a long career of breaking boundaries and obliterating expectations.Decades of Greatness: Over 27 years, Serena Williams dominated generation after generation of opponents and changed the way women’s tennis is played, winning 23 Grand Slam singles titles and cementing her reputation as the queen of comebacks.Is She the GOAT?: Proclaiming Williams the greatest women’s tennis player of all time is not a straightforward debate, our columnist writes.An Enduring Influence: From former and current players’ memories of a young Williams to the new fans she drew to tennis, Williams left a lasting impression.Her Fashion: Since she turned professional in 1995, Williams has used her clothes as a statement of self and a weapon of change.It was a slightly mis-hit shot that easily could have produced a different outcome, but the winner rattled Kovinic, who double faulted twice in a row.It was 3-3 in a hurry, and Williams took the hint and the momentum, sweeping the next three games to take the first set and then clicking into a gear she has not experienced in quite some time to take command.Spectators watched Williams on a big screen set up at Hudson Yards in Manhattan.Anna Watts for The New York TimesTroubled by knee pain in Ohio, she looked significantly quicker on Monday. She made errors on the move but at least she was moving. Though this was hardly vintage Williams, there were certainly nods to past glories as she began ripping ferocious full-cut return winners, closing on high balls with cocksure swing volleys and even holding serve at love.Raducanu, who barely made an unforced error and rarely had to hit a second serve in the last tournament Williams played before Monday night, was certainly a higher hurdle to clear than Kovinic, who finished with eight double faults and put only 44 percent of her first serves in play.But this, by the end, was an improved Williams, and it was evident her confidence grew as the match progressed in this grand yet so-familiar space.She was asked if the idea of retirement was now causing her less pain. In Toronto, shortly after her announcement, she broke down in tears at the post-match ceremony after losing to Belinda Bencic in the second round.“I do feel different; I think I was really emotional in Toronto and Cincinnati, and it was very difficult,” Williams said. “It’s extremely difficult still, because I absolutely love being out there. The more tournaments I play, I feel like the more I can belong out there. That’s a tough feeling to have and to leave knowing the more you do it, the more you can shine. But it’s time for me, you know, to evolve to the next thing.”Much has changed in Ashe Stadium since Williams made her U.S. Open debut in 1997, playing doubles with her older sister Venus. The court, once green, is now blue. The stadium, once fully exposed to the elements and swirling winds, now features a retractable roof that has changed the acoustics and the airflow even when the roof remains open.There are screens and more screens: on the walls and in the hands of the fans. And as Williams approached the end of this first-round victory that no one was taking for granted this year, many of the spectators rose to their feet as she prepared to return Kovinic’s serve on match point, holding their phones aloft to capture the moment.It was a rare, perhaps unprecedented scene — a head start on a standing ovation — and Williams delivered closure, finishing off the 6-3, 6-3 victory and then celebrating with a victory jig before the start of the bigger celebration — of her place in tennis and the wider culture. It was a surprise to Williams, who sat courtside in her chair as Gayle King and Billie Jean King took turns offering tributes.“You touched our hearts and minds to be our authentic self,” Billie Jean King said. “To use our voices. To dream big. Thank you for your leadership and commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion and especially for women and women of color. Most of all, thank you for sharing your journey with every single one of us.”Tamara King, a 42-year-old African American woman, was among those in Ashe Stadium. Once a Monica Seles fan, she soon became a Williams fan after Serena and Venus turned pro in the 1990s. After hearing that Serena’s retirement was imminent, she said she spent $3,000 on a ticket to Monday’s match.Multiple times throughout the night, she was moved to tears.“Never thought that I would be able to pay to be able to sit and see somebody that looks like me be loved by so many people at a court like Arthur Ashe Stadium,” Tamara King said. “It’s just full circle, because you know Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe were the pioneers of this. And now we have Serena and Venus, who have passed the torch to like Coco, which is just amazing for Black women. It’s amazing for tennis. Hopefully, it’ll continue.”King was referring to Coco Gauff, the rising 18-year-old American star who reached the French Open final this year and won her first-round match in Ashe Stadium earlier in the day, beating the French qualifier Leolia Jeanjean. But Gauff, like King and so many others, was watching Williams on a Monday when the Open set a night-session record on the grounds with 29,402 paying spectators.For their money, they got a match and what amounted to a farewell party — even if Williams is not quite ready to say farewell just yet.Despite the first-person Vogue essay earlier this month indicating that the end was near, she was still not prepared late Monday night to confirm that this will be her last tournament.“I’ve been pretty vague about it, right?” Williams said in the playful tone that is usually reserved for good nights at the office. “I’m going to stay vague, because you never know.”Williams will face No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit in the second round on Wednesday.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesWhat is clear is that this tournament is not over. She has entered the doubles draw with Venus, with whom she has already won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles. And on Wednesday, she will face the No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit in the second round of the singles tournament. That is perhaps less daunting than it appears on the draw sheet.Kontaveit, an Estonian who resides in London and has the English accent to prove it, has a powerful baseline game but has reserved her best performances for lesser occasions. She has been past the fourth round only once in a Grand Slam tournament, reaching the quarterfinals of the 2020 Australian Open, and has not been past the second round in the first three majors this season, in part because of the after effects of contracting Covid-19.She is also well aware that Wednesday night will be a new experience on two levels. She, like most of Williams’s opponents on tour these days, has never faced her, and Kontaveit has never faced any opponent in an atmosphere like this.“I was really rooting for her to win today,” Kontaveit said. “I mean, this is the last chance. Better late than never.”If the U.S. Open organizers threw this big a bash for Williams after a first-round victory, what might they do if she beats the No. 2 seed?Kris Rhim More

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      Are You a U.S. Open Fan? This Test Will Tell.

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      Tennis and trivia go together. So let’s see if you have the brain power to finesse your way through the 2022 edition of our U.S. Open quiz. Below are 20 questions, all pertaining to the Open era (1968 and onward) and singles, with one mixed-doubles exception. Let’s begin with a swinging volley: More

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      Serena Williams Wins First-Round Match Over Danka Kovinic at US Open

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      Serena Williams’s Grand Slam singles career will live on for at least another match.On one of her favorite stages, Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, beat Danka Kovinic of Montenegro, 6-3, 6-3, in front of a celebrity-packed capacity crowd on an electric opening night at the U.S. Open.This win came just a few weeks after she announced that she planned to step away from tennis after the U.S. Open to focus on having another child and on her business interests, though she was not shy about showing ambivalence about her decision.“I absolutely love being out there,” Williams said after the win. “The more tournaments I play, the more I feel I can belong out there.”Assuming she follows through with her plans to stop playing, Monday night’s win means the end of one of the most successful and influential careers in sports history won’t arrive until the second round of the U.S. Open, or even later. Williams will have a tougher test Wednesday against No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia, whom she has never faced. But Kontaveit has struggled of late, especially after a bout with Covid earlier in the year.Throughout the match, and especially in the final games as Williams bulldozed across the line, there were glimpses of the power and athleticism that had made Williams a boundary-breaking force that changed both her sport and women’s athleticism.Williams won the first set with strong serving in the final game.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAnd on a heavy, late-summer New York evening, on the court where she captured her first Grand Slam singles title in 1999, it was enough to topple Kovinic, the sort of player Williams has rolled over in maybe an hour in so many early-round matches in so many other Grand Slams. Williams was shaky and rusty at the start, double-faulting and netting easy ground strokes, but she got better as the night wore on and ultimately dictated how the match was played and how it finished.It may have just been one more first-round match that, if she had lost it, would have surprised few. No one had expected much from Williams coming into this tournament. Monday night’s match seemed to be as much of a gift for the boldfaced names and everyone else at Arthur Ashe Stadium as it was a chance for Williams to blast some final serves and winners, no matter what the numbers on the scoreboard said when it was over.Queen Latifah was there, and so was President Bill Clinton, Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor, and Katie Couric, and Matt Damon, and Hugh Jackman, and Naomi Osaka, who just the other day had called Williams the biggest force in the sport, and that included the superstar male group of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.Williams also plans to play in the doubles competition with her sister Venus, herself a seven-time Grand Slam singles champion, but Monday was always going to be Serena Williams’s valedictory, or the start of it, a night that, win-or-lose, would be a celebration. Williams made sure to show up for the party, and so did her daughter, Olympia, 4, who wore a matching outfit with her hair in beads evoking a young Serena, and nearly stole the show.Williams has endured a 27-year roller coaster filled with long stretches of near invincibility as well as injury-plagued years that made it seem like this night might have occurred long ago.She has collected armfuls of championship trophies — and came so close to several more in the final phase of her career — and also endured the headline-grabbing controversies that followed her run-ins with tennis officials on the court where she played Monday night.The crowd included President Bill Clinton; the filmmaker Spike Lee; Anna Wintour, the Vogue editor; the fashion designer Vera Wang; and several A-list actors.Jamie Squire/Getty ImagesFor Williams, who turns 41 in four weeks and is arguably the greatest player of all time, a loss to Kovinic, the 80th-ranked player in the world, was not the way she wanted to wave goodbye to her singles career.She has been a shadow of her former self this summer, during the singles matches that are serving as her coda after nearly a year away from the game she has loved and dedicated her life to. The impromptu farewell began in earnest at Wimbledon, made stops in Toronto and Ohio and now continues in New York at the U.S. Open for at least one more singles match, and a doubles match.It was Tony Godsick, the longtime agent for Federer, another champion struggling to figure out what his goodbye should look like, who said earlier this summer that going out gracefully doesn’t require lifting a championship trophy.It means going out on one’s own terms, not with an injury, like the torn hamstring that sent Williams off the court in tears at Wimbledon in 2021, but with a final chance to compete and soak in the roars from the crowd.“That atmosphere was a lot,” she said.She will hear the fans at least twice more this week.Their roar began echoing through the stadium as Williams walked onto the court just before 7:30 p.m. following a two-minute tribute video. She wore a black bedazzled jacket and headband and a wrap that flowed from her waist to her ankles.“Overwhelming,” she said of the noise. “I could feel it in my chest. And it was a really good feeling.”They roared again as she walked to the center of the court to join the film director Spike Lee for the coin toss, and they lifted her after two early double faults, as she saved break points in the first game, and then as she broke Kovinic in the second with one of those patented forehand putaways from the front of the court. Williams pumped her fist and let the noise fall over Kovinic.Kovinic and Williams were tied at three games apiece in the first set before Williams pulled away.Danielle Parhizkaran/USA Today Sports, via ReutersKovinic settled in though, and two games later the match was tied. She wasn’t going anywhere, especially with Williams struggling to find a rhythm with her serve and netting easy forehands.But Williams did what she has done for a very long time. She sensed an opening, a moment of weakness in her opponent, and she pounced.It happened midway through the first set, with Kovinic serving to go up two games. Williams hit a wobbly backhand that looked like it was going long, but it caught the back of the baseline and the edge of the sideline, and Kovinic then double-faulted the game away.All even once more, Williams started winning the points she needed to. A 115-mile-an-hour ace got her to set point. And then another cannon serve hit her target down the center of the court and Kovinic couldn’t get it back, letting the crowd send up a roar as Williams squatted and pumped her arms. Arthur Ashe Stadium was hers once more.As the match wore on, it became the kind of contest that Williams relishes, with two players banging balls from the middle of the backcourt. Did Kovinic even realize as she sprayed forehands wide and deep and into the net that she’d fallen into a classic Williams trap, abandoning the angles and spins that have won her matches before?If she did, Williams had no intention of letting her out.Fans gathered at Hudson Yards in Manhattan to watch the match. Anna Watts for The New York TimesA few long rallies early in the second set had a gassed Williams going to the towel to catch her breath. But the more balls Williams hit, the better she hit them. Each service game became a little better than the last one.She started jumping into Kovinic’s second serves to her backhand, sending winners across the court. And in the fifth game of the second set, Kovinic sent one too many forehands long. Williams had broken her serve to go up 3-2 and moved within shouting distance of the finish line. Later, a rolling backhand winner down the line got her to within a game of the victory. She raised her left fist and the roars echoed once more.Three points later, they stood for match point, a backhand into the net, and Williams was high-stepping and pirouetting like she did in the old days.Now she will get Kontaveit, as shaky a No. 2 seed as there has ever been.“It’s like Serena 2.0,” Williams said of the life that awaits her when this is all done. That will wait for now. This party rolls on. More

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      In First Round of the US Open, a Ukrainian Player Upset Simona Halep

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      Daria Snigur, 20, burst into tears after defeating Simona Halep of Romania, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion, in three sets on Monday in the first round of the U.S. Open.Snigur, a Ukrainian who is ranked No. 124 in the world, was making her debut in the main draw of a Grand Slam singles tournament; she had to win three matches to qualify. Her win over Halep was her first career victory at the WTA Tour level.“When I was in the moment, I didn’t understand what happened,” Snigur told reporters after the match. “I think it was the best match in my career.”After Snigur’s win, her father, who was in the stands, put his hands on top of his head as if in disbelief.“My father didn’t understand, too,” Snigur said.Halep, the No. 7 seed, is coached by Patrick Mouratoglou, Serena Williams’s former coach. Halep had been given 8-to-1 odds to win the tournament before it began, according to SportsBetting.ag.“I had tickets tomorrow to Warsaw,” Snigur said.After shaking hands with Halep and the chair umpire, Snigur stepped back onto the court to wave at the crowd. She made a heart shape with her hands over a yellow-and-blue ribbon affixed to her top, a tribute to her country in the midst of war.“Ukraine is always in my heart,” Snigur said of the gesture. “This victory is for Ukraine.”While her father was able to travel with her for the tournament, Snigur said that her mother was still in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital. Leading up to the U.S. Open, Snigur said she trained in the Latvian capital of Riga because the tennis facility she used in Ukraine had been bombed by Russian forces.“Sometimes it’s impossible to play, but I try to do my best,” Snigur said. “I try to do the best for Ukraine. I try to support my country.”In another symbol of support for the country, the Ukrainian Chorus Dumka of New York, an amateur ensemble that specializes in music from Ukraine, performed a song before Monday night’s match in Arthur Ashe Stadium between Serena Williams and Danka Kovinic. More