Sloane Stephens rocked. Kalamazoo winner Dennis Novikov got by Jerzy Janowicz. Querrey won as expected. Roddick, Venus and Serena won, but they took out Americans Rhyne Williams, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Coco Vandeweghe respectively in the process. Jesse Levine let a two-set-and-a-break lead slip away in five. Vania King and Irina Falconi were upset. Thank god for the doubles victories yesterday.
Christina McHale was the saddest story of the day for the US, though. Although her match was announced as a possible move to Arthur Ashe stadium and it was available, they made McHale wait seemingly forever on Grandstand. She was ready to play by noon but wasn’t able to get on Grandstand until evening. After her three-set loss, a USOpen.org contributor gave her a parting kidney punch with the headline, “No. 21 seed crashes in first round McFail”. That’s right! The USTA’s own tournament website insults one of their own marquee trainees!
So, American tennis had a middling day at best. Caroline Wozniacki’s was worse. She looked bothered from the outset of her match against Irina Camelia-Begu. Begu won her first Grand Slam match in nearly five years. After Wozniacki’s 2011 semifinal appearance at the Open, she’s poised to drop out of the top ten with a Bartoli victory. I suspect the Danish press will be less harsh on her than their New York counterparts are on McHale.
–S. Fogleman
Tennis Atlantic 
Return Serve?