Kei Nishikori of Japan walks off of the court after losing against Benoit Paire of France during their first round US Open match at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City yesterday. (AFP)
AFP/New York
Japanese fourth seed Kei Nishikori, last year’s runner-up, crashed out in the opening round of the US Open on Monday while Serena Williams lost another high-ranked rival as Serbian seventh seed Ana Ivanovic was also sent packing.
The year’s final Grand Slam tournament began with drama on the Flushing Meadows hardcourts as 41st-ranked Frenchman Benoit Paire ripped Nishikori 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-4 and Slovakia’s 50th-ranked Dominika Cibulkova ousted seventh-seeded Ivanovic 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
“To beat Nishikori, for me, it was impossible to imagine this,” Paire said. “I’m really happy.”
Paire, who saved two match points, fired 21 aces to only three for Nishikori and blasted 64 winners, 30 more than Nishikori, with 67 unforced errors, 31 more than the Asian number one.
Nishikori enjoyed his highest seed for any Grand Slam event all-too briefly, walking off Louis Armstrong Stadium with his head down after his third first-round exit in New York in five years.
After dropping the first set, Nishikori rallied and appeared poised to advance after seizing command of the fourth-set tie-breaker, a backhand winner giving him a 6-4 advantage and two match points.
But Nishikori smacked a forehand long on his first and Paire, who won his first ATP title last month at Bastad, smashed two service winners to reach set point. Nishikori netted a forehand and the match went to a fifth set.
Paire broke Nishikori in the fifth game and held to the finish, dispatching him after three hours and 14 minutes.
“I had a really good serve today,” Paire said. “I saved two match points so I’m really lucky.”
Nishikori had won three titles this year included a US Open warm-up win at Washington that saw him avenge last year’s US Open final loss to Croatian Marin Cilic.
Serb star Ivanovic made her first opening-round exit at the US Open since 2009.
“It’s definitely very disappointing with the loss because I felt like I had great preparation,” Ivanovic said.
“I felt like I’ve been improving. That’s why it’s so disappointing. I just have to keep working.”
Ivanovic, the 2008 French Open champion who was a semi-finalist this year at Roland Garros, had been the highest-ranked rival in Williams’s half of the draw following the injury-enforced withdrawal of Maria Sharapova.
That status now falls to Czech eighth seed Karolina Pliskova with Spanish 10th seed Carla Suarez Navarro the highest-rated possible semi-final opponent for three-time defending champion Williams, who is trying to complete the first calendar Grand Slam since Steffi Graf in 1988 and win her 22nd major title to match Graf’s Open Era record.
Poland’s 15th-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska remained Williams’s highest-ranked potential foe in the round of 16 by beating Czech teen Katerina Siniakova 6-2, 6-3.
Williams will open in the first Ashe night match against Russia’s 86th-ranked Vitalia Diatchenko.
World number one Novak Djokovic meets Brazil’s Joao Souza while Spanish eighth seed Rafael Nadal, a possible quarter-final foe for Djokovic, faces Croatia’s Borna Coric, who won their first meeting last year at Basel.
