Unseeded opponent for Serena first-up
Serena Williams’ first opponent at what she has indicated will be her last US Open — and, indeed, the last tournament of her career — is unseeded Danka Kovinic.
Win that on Tuesday, and Williams could face No 2 seed Anett Kontaveit of Estonia in the second round.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion, who turns 41 next month, announced this month she was preparing to step away from her playing career. She did not explicitly say when she planned to stop but made it sound as if the US Open would mark her farewell.
Williams has won the hard-court tournament in Flushing Meadows six times.
Kovinic has never been past the second round in four appearances at the US Open. She is a 27-year-old from Montenegro who is 80th in the WTA rankings this week and has been as high as 46th. Williams and Kovinic have never played each other in singles.
Williams is just 1-3 this season, having recently returned to singles action after a year away following a first-round injury exit at Wimbledon in 2021.
Her first match back came at the All England Club in late June, and she lost her opener there in a thirdset tiebreaker to 115th-ranked Frenchwoman Harmony Tan.
After winning a match at an event in Toronto, Williams was eliminated in straight sets there by Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Belinda Bencic, then lost again in straight sets at Cincinnati against reigning US Open champion Emma Raducanu.
While Williams has spent more than 300 weeks at No 1, her lack of activity has contributed to a slide; she is 410th this week. Other possible opponents for Williams, should she progress through the tournament, include the No 27 seed Martina Trevisan of Italy in the third round and 2021 US Open runner-up Leylah Fernandez of Canada or 2021 French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic in the fourth.
No 1 Iga Swiatek, a two-time French Open champion, will meet Jasmine Paolini in the first round, while Raducanu will begin her title defence against Alize Cornet. Both of those matches will be on Wednesday.
One fascinating first-round matchup on Wednesday is Naomi Osaka, who won the US Open in 2018 and 2020 for two of her four major championships, against Danielle Collins, the Australian Open runnerup in Melbourne in January.
Shortly before the draw reveal, some expected news arrived: Novak Djokovic tweeted he would not be in New York for the US Open.
The 35-year-old from Serbia, who has won 21 Grand Slam titles, is not vaccinated against Covid-19.
Foreign citizens who have not received the shot are not allowed to enter the United States.
Djokovic is a three-time champion at Flushing Meadows; he lost in the
2021 final to Daniil Medvedev, ending a bid for the first calendar-year Grand Slam in men’s tennis since 1969.
Medvedev is seeded No 1, making this US Open the first major since
2004 without Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer or Andy Murray in that spot.
He will start by taking on Stefan Kozlov of the United States on Tuesday. Second seed Nadal, whose
22 Grand Slam titles are a record for a man, was drawn to face Australian wild card recipient Rinky Hijikata on Wednesday.