NEW YORK – Defending champion Kim Clijsters briefly lost her step on a windy day before recovering in time to win her 15th straight match at the US Open.
The second-seeded Belgian beat Hungary’s Greta Arn 6-0, 7-5 in the first round yesterday.
She fell behind 4-0 in the second set, and the 104th-ranked Arn had a chance to serve out the set at 5-4. But Clijsters got the break, then did it again to clinch the straight-set victory.
Clijsters said she wasn’t aggressive enough playing with the wind at her back early in the second set, waiting for the ball instead of moving up for it.
“She kind of put me under pressure a little bit where it should have been the other way around,” she said.
A year ago, Clijsters was a wild-card entry in only her third tournament back after 2 1/2 years away from the sport. Now she’s one of the favourites to win the Open.
Melanie Oudin and Francesca Schiavone also know how quickly perceptions can change. Oudin has struggled with higher expectations since her crowd-pleasing run to the US Open quarter-finals last year. So has Schiavone after her breakthrough French Open title in June.
But neither showed any signs of the pressure in cruising to dominant first-round wins.
Grand Slam
Oudin, the 18-year-old from Marietta, Georgia, needed just 56 minutes to beat Olga Savchuk of Ukraine 6-3, 6-0. Schiavone, the Italian who won her first Grand Slam weeks before her 30th birthday, dispatched Ayumi Morita of Japan 6-1, 6-0 in 58 minutes.
Former champion, the ninth-seeded Roddick, celebrated his 28th birthday by beating Stephane Robert of France 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.
Two-time French Open runner-up Robin Soderling was pushed to five sets by a qualifier ranked 214th in the world. The No. 5-seeded Swede beat Andreas Haider-Maurer of Austria 7-5, 6-3, 6-7 (2), 5-7, 6-4.
No. 24 seed Daniela Hantuchova beat former world No. 1 Dinara Safina 6-3, 6-4. The unseeded Safina missed almost three months this year with a back injury and has slipped to 50th in the world rankings. She was the topseed at last year’s US Open, but lost in the third round.
Russia’s Elena Dementieva, the No. 12 seed, beat Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-1, 6-2. Sixteenth-seeded Shahar Peerof Israel defeated Jelena Kostanic Tosic of Croatia 6-4, 7-5.
Fellow Russian Nikolay Davydenko, the No. 6 seed on the men’s side, beat American Michael Russell 6-4, 6-1, 6-3. No. 11 Marin Cilic and No. 22 Juan Carlos Ferrero also advanced. No. 27 Fernando Gonzalez of Chile retired against Ivan Dodig of Croatia. (AP)
