The US Open is now well underway and its been a good start for British players with Dan Evans and Johanna Konta both making it through to the second round, but the plaudits have to go to Kyle Edmunds who knocked out 13th seed Gasquet in straight sets. We will also be guaranteed one other British female player in the second round as at the time of writing Naomi Broady and Laura Robson were in action against each other.
At the time of writing the majority of the male seeds had made it through to the second round and top-seed Djokovic had to battle hard for the first two sets before prevailing in four against Janowicz. Fourth seed Nadal made light work of his first round match winning in straight sets as did third seed Wawrinka, fifth seed Raonic, seventh seed Cilic, ninth seed Tsonga, tenth seed Monfils, 22nd seed Dimtirov and 23rd seed Anderson.
At the time of writing other seeds to progress were sixth seed Nishikori, who took four sets to defeat Becker, 11th seed Ferrer who benefited from Dolgopolov retiring in-play due to injury, 15th seed Bautista Agut, who knocked out compatriot Garcia-Lopez in four sets and 18th seed Cuevas who scraped past Sela in five sets.
Other seeds to progress were 20th seed Isner, who came through a titanic battle against young compatriot Tiafoe on a fifth set tiebreak, 24th seed Pouille who knocked out Kukushkin in four sets, 26th seed Sock was given a scare by teenage compatriot Fritz winning in five sets, 27th seed Zverev knocked out compatriot Brands from a set down to win in four and finally 31st seed Ramos-Vinolas and 32nd seed Paire both took five sets to see off Benneteau and Lajovic respectively.
In addition to Gasquet losing there have been three other seeds who lost at the first round stage; 12th seed Goffin crashed out in four sets against American teenager Donaldson, 25th seed Kohlschreiber retired injured in-play against Mahut, 28th seed Klizan was brushed aside by veteran Youhzny as was 29th seed Querrey against veteran Tipsarevic.
As is usually the case in the women’s US Open there were plenty of seeded players who ended up being first round casualties. Nine in total lost, including Olympic Gold medal winner Monica Puig seeded 32, French Open semi-finalist Kiki Bertens seeded 20, former French Open and Australian Open winner Ana Ivanovic seeded 29 and former French Open finalist Sara Errani seeded 27.
At the time of writing Australian Open winner Kerber seeded two, French Open winner Muguruza seeded three, fifth seed Halep, 2015 US Open finalist Vinci, eighth Keys, ninth seed Kuznetsova and tenth seed Pliskova had all confirmed there top-10 status by making it through to the second round. The same applied to top-20 stars like 11th seed Suarez-Navarro, 12th seed Cibulkova, former Wimbledon winner 14th seed Kvitova, 15th seed Bacsinszky and former US Open winner Stosur seeded 16, who all proved too good for their respective lower ranked opposition.
