Rybakina advances despite injury concerns
Second seed Elena Rybakina eased concerns over her fitness and advanced to the S. Open second round on Tuesday, with a clinical 6-3 6-2 win over American crowd favourite Thea Frodin.
The Kazakh withdrew from the Cincinnati tune-up tournament with a leg injury, raising questions over whether she would even compete in New York, but appeared untroubled as she launched her bid for the title and the world number one ranking.
Rybakina, a two-time Grand Slam champion, will next face either Czech Darja Vidmanova or Spain's Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.
Frodin was making her Grand Slam main-draw debut five years after portraying a young Serena Williams in the Oscar-winning film "King Richard".
The 17-year-old tennis-playing double for the film showed flashes of brilliance, with 11 aces, after fans waited nearly four hours through a rain delay to watch her on the Grandstand.
But she struggled to trouble the Australian Open champion in her first tour-level match, as Rybakina broke in the sixth game on the way to taking a largely uneventful opening set and maintained control in the second.
Frodin drew some of the loudest cheers of the match when she saved three match points with aces in the penultimate game, but Rybakina sealed victory with an ace of her own.
"She played really well today and she has great shots," Rybakina said before pausing as she packed her kit to join the crowd's ovation for Frodin.
"It was not easy and I'm just happy to be here, playing here."
Keys overcomes early jitters
In another first-round match, American Madison Keys overcame early jitters to down Russian Alina Korneeva 7-5 6-4, exorcising the demons of her early exit a year ago.
Just months after winning her first Grand Slam title at the 2025 Australian Open, Keys crashed out in the first round at Flushing Meadows after being overcome by debilitating nerves.
But Keys felt more at home this time around, improving her first-serve percentage from 48 per cent in the first set to nearly 70 per cent in the second. She will next meet either Czech Lucie Havlickova or Hungarian Anna Bondar.
"Today is obviously tough, because you go back on the court where you had a really tough loss, and to go back out and play another first round, it's always hard," said the 2017 US Open runner-up. "To have that kind of lingering memory is tough."
Keys looked at first as though she would cruise through the match on Arthur Ashe Stadium as she won the first three games, but the Russian broke back in the fifth when Keys hit a forehand shot wildly out of bounds. After trading breaks again, Keys eventually sealed the win.