Danka Kovinic is Serena Williams’ first opponent in the US Open
At the U.S. Open, Serena Williams’ first challenger will be Danka Kovinic. Open, which is anticipated to be her final tournament of her career Anett Kontaveit of Estonia, the No. 2 seed, might be Williams’ opponent if she is successful in doing so. The brackets for the men’s and women’s singles events were unveiled by the U.S. Tennis Association on Thursday. Matches will be played in the preliminary round on Monday and Tuesday.
Danka Kovinic is Serena Williams’ first opponent in the US Open
Williams has not yet announced the exact day that she will compete. The 23-time Grand Slam winner, who will be 41 on September 26, stated this month that she was getting ready to call it quits on her playing career. She did not state a specific end date but gave the impression that the U.S. Open would be her last match.
Six times in Flushing Meadows, Williams has won a hard court competition. She just made her singles comeback after a year off following her injury-related first-round Wimbledon elimination in 2021. She is now 1-3. In late June, she played in her first match since leaving the country, losing to Harmony Tan of the 115th-ranked team in a third-set tiebreaker.
A 27-year-old Montenegrin named Kovinic, who has climbed as high as 46th in the WTA rankings, is currently ranked 80th. Williams and Kovinic have never faced off against each other in a singles match. Williams had previously won a match in a tournament in Toronto before being defeated in straight sets by gold medalist from the Tokyo Olympics Belinda Bencic there. She subsequently lost in the same manner to reigning U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu at a tournament in Cincinnati.
Williams’ every move before the start of the U.S. Open will be scrutinised because she has stated that she is getting ready to end her tennis career. Williams had been first for more than 300 weeks, however this week she is at number 410 due to a lack of activity.
She would have been put anywhere in the field against any opponent and would not have had a seed in New York. The No. 27 seed Martina Trevisan of Italy, the 2021 U.S. Open runner-up Leylah Fernandez of Canada, or the 2021 French Open winner Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic might be Williams’ other potential opponents should she advance through the tournament. Because their brackets are on opposing sides, she may face her sister Venus in the final.
