{"id":63384,"date":"2026-09-02T18:53:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/63384\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T18:53:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T18:53:26","slug":"pegula-medvedev-score-early-wins-at-us-open-alcaraz-and-sabalenka-to-pursue-title-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/63384\/","title":{"rendered":"Pegula, Medvedev score early wins at US Open, Alcaraz and Sabalenka to pursue title defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Third-ranked Jessica Pegula<\/a> breezed into the third round of the U.S. Open<\/a> on Wednesday with a decisive victory over Sofia Kenin<\/a>, and Alex Michelsen<\/a> defeated Brandon Nakashima<\/a> on a day when nine American men were in action.<\/p>\n

No. 7 seed Daniil Medvedev<\/a> was among other early winners, with a straight-set victory over Sebastian Gorzny<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was a packed day as the tournament caught up from Tuesday\u2019s rain delays, with 25 singles matches being played on the men\u2019s side alone.<\/p>\n

A couple of key marquee matches were coming in the evening with defending champions Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> and Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> back in action in second-round matches. Sabalenka faced Russian player Polina Iatcenko<\/a>, and Alcaraz faced Jaime Faria<\/a> of Portugal.<\/p>\n

Pegula had an easy time with her second-round match, needing only 56 minutes to defeat Kenin \u2014 the 2020 Australian Open champion \u2014 6-3, 6-1. Kenin had advanced to the second round by beating Venus Williams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also in action, the top-ranked American man, No. 8 seed Ben Shelton<\/a>, was facing Hubert Hurkacz<\/a> of Poland in their first meeting. Shelton is hoping to reach the third round of the tournament for the fourth straight season. Also in action was Frances Tiafoe<\/a>, the 11th-seeded American, facing 20-year-old qualifier Rei Sakamoto<\/a> of Japan.<\/p>\n

In the evening, defending champion Alcaraz looks to advance to the third round for the fifth time in six appearances, after sitting out of competition since April with a right wrist injury. Sabalenka, meanwhile, hopes to continue her quest to become the first player to win three straight U.S. Open<\/a> titles since Serena Williams<\/a> from 2012-14.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Third-ranked Jessica Pegula breezed into the third round of the U.S. Open on Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1677,217,283,419,2575,271,1021,18995,1550,1545,4267,183,22517,8519,1915],"class_list":["post-63384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carlos-alcaraz","tag-alex-michelsen","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-atp","tag-ben-shelton","tag-brandon-nakashima","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-daniil-medvedev","tag-event_recap","tag-frances-tiafoe","tag-hubert-hurkacz","tag-jaime-faria","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-rei-sakamoto","tag-sebastian-gorzny","tag-sofia-kenin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}