{"id":177253,"date":"2025-08-26T14:38:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T14:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/177253\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T14:38:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T14:38:21","slug":"u-s-open-day-2-recap-carlos-alcarazs-buzz-cuts-through-reilly-opelka-in-night-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/177253\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Open day 2 recap: Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s buzz cuts through Reilly Opelka in night session"},"content":{"rendered":"

Follow <\/a>The Athletic<\/a>\u2018s U.S. Open coverage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the U.S. Open<\/a> briefing, where The Athletic\u00a0will explain the stories behind the stories on each day of the tournament.<\/p>\n

On day 2, nerves even get to champions, a rising star gets a reality check, and Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s hair causes controversy.<\/p>\n

Champions still get nervous sometimes<\/p>\n

The end of Madison Keys\u2019 Grand Slam season was about as different from its start as possible.<\/p>\n

In January, Keys won the Australian Open<\/a>, taking out defending champion Aryna Sabalenka in a knife-edge final.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, at the U.S. Open, she lost to Renata Zaraz\u00faa of Mexico, the world No. 82<\/a>, from 7-6(10), 3-0 up. Zaraz\u00faa made a stunning comeback to take the biggest win of her career, 6-7(10), 7-6(3), 7-5.<\/p>\n

There is not much mystery about the stats sheet. Keys committed 89 \u201cunforced\u201d errors to just 34 for Zaraz\u00faa, who used height and incredible defense to make Keys hit ball after ball. The accumulated pressure made her hit for smaller margins, and so she missed.<\/p>\n

The mystery here involves the nerves that Keys said affected her play throughout the match. The triumph in Australia, after 16 years as a prodigy preordained to win a stack of majors who had won none, was supposed to set her free.<\/p>\n

Not so in her home Slam, where she has suffered plenty of heartbreak before, including getting bageled in the second set of the 2017 final against Sloane Stephens.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time in a while, my nerves really got the better of me and it kind of became a little bit paralyzing,\u201d Keys said. \u201cI felt like I was just slow, I wasn\u2019t seeing things the way that I wanted to, which I feel like resulted in a lot of bad decisions and lazy footwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her win in Australia followed time in therapy: to learn not to define herself by her results. She always knew that would require constant work, that those sentiments might continue to pop up sometimes. And then they did, at a very inconvenient time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more than just saying, I want to win. Just feeling like winning matters just way too much,\u201d Keys said.<\/p>\n

Zaraz\u00faa gets France\u2019s Diane Parry \u2014 and a spot in the path of Coco Gauff that was meant for Keys.<\/p>\n

Matt Futterman<\/p>\n

Carlos Alcaraz leaves the U.S. Open abuzz<\/p>\n

After over 40 minutes, one set, and 23 points, Reilly Opelka of the U.S. won an exchange against Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s serve in their first-round match. Opelka, the 6ft 11in (211cm) serve bot archetype who lasers the ball down at over 130mph, is supposed to be the guy with the untouchable serve. But it was Alcaraz, who has declared a desire to be labeled a serve bot like Opelka, despite lacking the limitations required, who proved unbreakable on Arthur Ashe Stadium.<\/p>\n

A locked-in, locked-down 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 win for a player who is 30-1 in his last 31 matches, but also prone to losing focus, was the perfect opening statement in Alcaraz\u2019s push for the world No. 1 ranking in New York, as well as the U.S. Open title. Better the result of his nearest rival Jannik Sinner, and Alcaraz returns to the top of men\u2019s tennis.<\/p>\n

And if he gets back into that rarefied air, he might feel it whistling more keenly over his head. Alcaraz debuted a very tight buzzcut ahead of his win over the American, later explaining in his news conference that his brother had \u201cmisunderstood the machine\u201d and left him requiring an emergency close shave. Better on his head than on the tennis court.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz will play Mattia Bellucci, the extroverted, shotmaking Italian lefty, in the second round.<\/p>\n

James Hansen<\/p>\n

A rising star gets her next tennis reality check<\/p>\n

Tennis, it turns out, isn\u2019t quite as easy as Victoria Mboko<\/a> has been making it look.<\/p>\n

After winning the Canadian Open, a WTA 1000 title one rung below the Grand Slams to cap a season of near-uninterrupted growth, Mboko has finally come back down to earth.<\/p>\n

Mboko, who turns 19 today, came into the U.S. Open nursing a wrist injury that she suffered in Montreal during that title run earlier this month, and the No. 22 seed had a reality check yesterday in the form of a two-time Grand Slam champion.<\/p>\n

Barbora Krej\u010d\u00edkov\u00e1 was much too strong on the day, winning 6-3, 6-2 against an Mboko who clearly wasn\u2019t fully fit.<\/p>\n

Losses have been few and far between this year for the Canadian, who cut a swathe through the second-tier ITF circuit before seamlessly adapting to life on the WTA Tour, but for the vast, vast majority of tennis players, they are a regular occurrence.<\/p>\n

This defeat will have stung after all of the excitement of her home tournament, but Mboko knows there\u2019ll be many more days like this. She hopes, though, that they\u2019ll be outweighed by more like the magical ones she enjoyed in Montreal a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Victoria Mboko played with strapping on her right wrist during her U.S. Open first-round match. (Ishika Samant \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Charlie Eccleshare<\/p>\n

Other notable results on day 2<\/p>\n