Halep 1st No. 1 to lose 1st match
NEW YORK — Some players, like top-ranked Simona Halep, freely acknowledge they don’t deal well with the hustle-andbustle of the U.S. Open and all it entails.
Others, like 44th-ranked Kaia Kanepi, take to the Big Apple and its Grand Slam tournament.
Put those two types at opposite ends of a court at Flushing Meadows and watch what can happen: Halep made a quick-ascan-be exit yesterday, overwhelmed by the powerbased game of Kanepi 6-2, 6-4 to become the first No. 1-seeded woman to lose her opening match at the U.S. Open in the half-century of the professional era.
Halep blamed openinground jitters, and that has been a recurring theme throughout her career. The reigning French Open champion has now lost her first match at 12-of-34 career major appearances, a stunningly high rate for such an accomplished player.
“It’s always about the nerves,” said Halep, who was beaten in 2017 in the first round in New York by five-time major champion Maria Sharapova. “Even when you are there in the top, you feel the same nerves. You are human.”
She also offered up an explanation tied to this site.
“Maybe the noise in the crowd. The city is busy. So everything together,” said Halep, who was coming off consecutive runs to the final at hard-court tuneup tournaments at Cincinnati and Montreal. “I’m a quiet person, so maybe I like the smaller places.”
Since professionals were admitted to Grand Slam tournaments in 1968, only five times before yesterday did women seeded No. 1 lose their opening match at a major and never at the U.S. Open. It happened twice to Martina Hingis and once to Steffi Graf at Wimbledon, once to Angelique Kerber at the French Open and once to Virginia Ruzici at the Australian Open.
Halep’s loss was the first match at the rebuilt Louis Armstrong Stadium, which now has about 14,000 seats and a retractable roof.
“The courts suit my game,” said Kanepi, who is from Estonia, “and I love being in New York. I like the city. I like the weather, humid and hot.”
Halep’s departure means she can’t stand in the way of Serena Williams, who could have faced Halep in the fourth round. Williams, the 23-time major champion who missed last year’s U.S. Open because she gave birth on Sept. 1, returned with a flourish with a 6-4, 6-0 victory over Magda Linette under the lights.
“The first set was tight. It was my first back here in New York, so that wasn’t the easiest,” Williams told the crowd. “Once I got settled, I started doing what I’m trying to do in practice.”
Williams, a six-time winner at Flushing Meadows, moved a step closer to a possible third-round matchup against her older sister, two-time winner Venus, who defeated 2004 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 5-7, 6-3. Venus won the 2000 and ’01 U.S. Open championships but struggled in the majors this year, falling in the first round of the Australian Open and French Open.
Others making the second round included defending champion and No. 3 seed Sloane Stephens, two-time U.S. Open finalist Victoria Azarenka, and two-time major champ Garbine Muguruza.
Four seeded men lost in the afternoon, including No. 8 Grigor Dimitrov against three-time major champion Stan Wawrinka, who also beat him in the first round of Wimbledon, No. 16 Kyle Edmund was beaten by Paolo Lorenzi, and No. 19 Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain was swept by Jason Kubler.
Britian’s Andy Murray, whose three major titles include the 2012 U.S. Open, played his first Grand Slam match in more than a year and won, eliminating James Duckworth 6-7 (5), 6-3, 7-5, 6-3.
Other winners included a pair of Americans, No.18 Jack Sock and No. 11 John Isner.