Coco Gauff had an easy start to her U.S. Open title defence, rolling to a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Varvara Gracheva on Monday. Gauff needed just over an hour, looking more like the player who won her first major title last year at age 19 than the one who had dropped her last two matches before coming to New York.
Zheng Qinwen, the Olympic gold medallist in women's tennis, stayed in the tournament by rallying for a 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 victory over Amanda Anisimova.
Zheng began the Grand Slam season by reaching the final of the Australian Open. She had a difficult assignment to start the year's final major in Anisimova, an American who earlier this month reached the final of a hard-court warmup tournament in Montreal and returned to the top 50 of the WTA rankings.
But the No. 7 seed from China solved Anisimova's power as the match went on to move into the second round as she turns her attention back to the Grand Slams after becoming China's first singles gold medallist at the Paris Olympics. "You have the first one, of course you're going to stay a long time in the successful feeling.