Daniel Island, SC—Once again, we find ourselves between the Wando and Cooper Rivers at a majestic tennis stadium with lush surroundings on land that was a private hunting reserve for the Guggenheim family and foundation until 1996. The vibe is new meets old, and sometimes it feels like the whole community is contrived. Here, there is nothing contrived about the level of tennis and newer always meets older in qualifying.

Britain’s Heather Watson, at 31, is shockingly the oldest player in the qualifying field. She raced out to a 6-0 start, before easing past American Alana Smith, 6-0, 6-4. Watson will face Daria Saville tomorrow for a spot in the main draw, which is a marquee qualies matchup akin to a main draw match itself. In fact, the duo have squared off before in a round of 64 in Madrid in 2016 with Saville the victor, 7-5, 6-4.

Saville, the 30-year-old Australian, was a 6-1, 6-2 winner over American Grace Min.

Another Australian, Astra Sharma, bested younger American Jessie Aney, 6-0, 6-2 in the shortest match of the day at 44 minutes. Her quest for the main draw on Sunday will go through fellow 29-year-old Gabriela Lee, who outlasted Japan’s Mai Hontama, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.

Wild Card Usue Arconada survived a highly competitive straight sets contest over fellow American Elizabeth Mandlik, 7-5, 7-6(5) in a contest that lasted nearly two hours before a capacity crowd on recently enlarged Court 3 stands. The American needs to beat top qualifying seed Varvara Gracheva, who came back from a first set 6-4 loss to prevail over fellow 23-year-old Dalayna Hewitt of the US, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.

The scoreline for 22-year-old Katie Volynets win over Katherine Sebov looked easy at 6-3, 6-2. The match was more competitive than it appeared as there were long points throughout the first and second sets to extend it to an hour and 45 minutes. The winner of Ann Li and Robin Anderson will meet up with Volynets tomorrow.

The big winner of the day for the youth movement was Linda Fruhvirtova with a 7-5, 4-6, 6-0 marathon over Nicole Melichar-Martinez, 30. The 18-year-old phenom will advance to the Charleston big dance with a win tomorrow over Claire Lu.

American McCartney Kessler was also a winner on Saturday, 6-2, 6-1, and will face either Lauen Davis or Sachia Vickery in Round 2.

—S. Fogleman