U.S. women suffer disastrous 1st day

MELBOURNE, Australia — U.S. women lost nine of 10 first-round matches on a bleak opening day Monday at the Australian Open.

Four months after American women filled all four semifinal spots at the U.S. Open for the first time in 36 years, three of them are out of contention.

Monday’s major letdown was compounded when eighth-seeded Jack Sock and No. 16 John Isner joined the procession of U.S. first-round losers.

Venus Williams and Sloane Stephens were among those to fall. Then 10th-seeded CoCo Vandeweghe, a semifinalist in Melbourne and at the U.S. Open last year, was frustrated in a 7-6 (4), 6-2 loss to Timea Babos.

She yelled an obscenity late in the second set and then got a time violation for waiting too long for a banana to be brought to the court between sets, earning a point penalty.

“I was trying to wait for what I asked for, and the chair umpire deemed that it wasn't a good enough reason,” she said.

CiCi Bellis, Sofia Kenin, Alison Riske, Taylor Townsend and Jennifer Brady all lost before Nicole Gibbs beat Viktoriya Tomova 6-1, 6-1 to end the streak of eight losses for the U.S. women. Irina Falconi lost 6-1, 6-1 to No. 23-seeded Daria Gavrilova in the night match, making it 1 for 9.

“It was a tough day, and this is a tough sport,” Gibbs said. “This isn’t an indication of anything except we have a lot of depth and we had a bad day.”

Sock, the highest ranked of the American men, lost 6-1, 7-6 (4), 5-7, 6-3 to Yuichi Sugita, while Isner fell to Australian journeyman Matt Ebden and qualifier Kevin King lost to No. 15 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Ryan Harrison beat Dudi Sela in a sometimes heated five-setter, and qualifier Mackenzie McDonald also bucked the trend for the Americans.

No. 1 Rafael Nadal and No. 3 Grigor Dimitrov opened with routine wins, as did second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki and No. 4 Elina Svitolina on the women’s side. U.S. Open finalist and 11th-seeded Kevin Anderson lost in five sets to Kyle Edmund.