In a first-round clash between two wildcards and American Grand Slam champions who have both struggled on court this year, former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin staved off a late second-set challenge from seven-time Grand Slam singles winner Venus Williams to advance to the second round of the US Open on opening night in New York.<\/p>\n
US Open: Scores<\/a> | Order of Play<\/a> | Overview<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Playing in her record-extending 26th US Open main-draw, Williams, who won the title in 2000 and 2001, was slow off the blocks and found herself down two breaks at 3-0. Although she pulled back one break to cut the deficit to 3-2, Kenin stayed on top and claimed the first set 6-2.<\/p>\n The 27-year-old Kenin broke early in the second set to go up 3-1 and Williams appeared headed for a straight-set loss as she served at 2-4 and facing break point. But that’s when the 46-year-old American began to find her game.<\/p>\n Down 6-2, 4-2, Williams mounts a comeback<\/p>\n Williams held off the break point and went on to win three games in a row to take a 5-4 lead. She earned three set points on Kenin’s serve in the 10th game but was unable to convert. At 5-5, Williams saved four break points to hold for a 6-5 lead.<\/p>\n Although Kenin held easily to push the set into a tiebreak, the momentum appeared to have swung in Williams’ favor. She went up 6-2 in the tiebreak, earning four more set points, but Kenin saved each of them before converting her first match point to close out the 6-3, 7-6 (9-7) victory in 1 hour, 48 minutes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n “I think it was just a little bit unlucky” – Venus on missed set points<\/p>\n For Williams, the loss dropped her record to 0-12 for the season and marked her fifth consecutive opening-round loss at the US Open.<\/p>\n “I think she played well,” Williams told the media about her missed chances in the second set. “I hit even a really nice serve. She hit a winner. I had some chances on her serve. She had a great second serve. Maybe I had a loose point here or there, but I don’t think that I just gave it away. I think it was just a little bit unlucky, and I think it’s some of the best tennis she’s played lately for sure.”<\/p>\n “I think I had a lot of great moments today, for sure,” she added. “As the match progressed, I just kept pushing myself to try to find my best tennis and to find my rhythm. It’s not easy to do in the first round. It’s not easy to do it at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. in the morning to try to find your rhythm and play your best, but I tried my best.”<\/p>\n Kenin finished the match with 28 winners and 21 unforced errors, while Williams hit 13 winners and committed 24 unforced errors. It was only Kenin\u2019s sixth main-draw win at the WTA level in 2026 and she improved to 21-13 in Grand Slam main draw matches.<\/p>\n Pegula awaits Kenin in second round<\/p>\n She will be looking to win back-to-back matches at a tournament for the first time this season when she faces another American, No. 3 seed Jessica Pegula, who defeated Elena-Gabriela Ruse 6-3, 6-2 in the day session Sunday.<\/p>\n Pegula and Kenin have played seven times, most recently playing at 2025 Charleston, with Pegula holding a 4-2 lead. Their last hard court meeting came in the second round of the 2024 US Open, which Pegula won in straight sets en route to the final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a first-round clash between two wildcards and American Grand Slam champions who have both struggled on court…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1178807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,661,16,15],"class_list":["post-1178806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117189610290417360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1178807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}