Alcaraz Dropped the First Set in Only His Second Match Since April and Zverev Needed Four Hours and Fifty-Three Minutes to Get Through Round One
The defending champion beat Jaime Faria 4-6 6-0 6-3 6-2 on Wednesday night. The top seed saved two match points against Lorenzo Sonego in a five-set opener on Arthur Ashe.
Carlos Alcaraz lost the opening set of his second-round match at the US Open on Wednesday night and then lost only five games in the rest of it, beating Portugal's Jaime Faria 4-6 6-0 6-3 6-2 to reach the third round.
Faria is 23, the same age as Alcaraz, and ranked 72nd. He took the first set and had two break points at the start of the second. Alcaraz saved both, won the set to love, and was not troubled again.
The context is that this is only Alcaraz's second competitive match since the middle of April, when he injured his right wrist. He is the defending champion, a two-time US Open winner and a seven-time major champion, and he arrived in New York with no matches in his legs. He beat Roman Safiullin in straight sets in the first round. He plays China's Wu Yibing, ranked 113th, next.
The top seed had a much longer evening. Alexander Zverev beat the unseeded Italian Lorenzo Sonego 6-4 3-6 6-7(7) 7-5 6-4 in four hours and fifty-three minutes on Arthur Ashe Stadium, saving two match points from 4-5 down in the fourth set. Zverev had won all six of their previous meetings. This is his tenth US Open, and his first as a Grand Slam champion after winning Roland Garros earlier this year. He has 47 tour-level wins this season, 19 of them at majors. Quentin Halys is next.
Aryna Sabalenka, the world number one and twice defending champion, needed 53 minutes to beat the qualifier Polina Iatcenko 6-1 6-1, hitting 24 winners to three. She plays Kamilla Rakhimova next.
Katie Boulter's tournament ended in 58 minutes. The British number one lost 6-1 6-0 to the seventh seed Karolina Muchova with eight double faults, no aces, 22 unforced errors against four winners, and none of seven break points converted. Rain had pushed her match onto Louis Armstrong Stadium.
The men's draw is unusually open. Jannik Sinner is absent injured and Novak Djokovic went out in the first round, which leaves a defending champion two matches into a comeback and a top seed who has already spent nearly five hours on court. The tournament runs to 13 September.