Upsets Galore on Day 1 of US Open

Amid a flurry of first-round upsets, Kei Nishikori had multiple chances - two, to be specific - to sidestep disaster at the U.S. Open on Monday. (Complete US Open 2015 coverage)

A finalist last year and the fourth seed this year, Nishikori of Japan had two match points in a fourth-set tiebreaker against Benoit Paire, a hard-serving Frenchman. But Nishikori allowed both of them to slip away, and a potential victory vanished, too.

"It's never easy to lose that opportunity," Nishikori said after falling to the unseeded Paire, 6-4, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-4.

Nishikori, who had hoped to build on his success last summer when he became the first man from Asia to reach a Grand Slam final, was joined by a host of other stars who made premature exits on the opening day at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.

By the time the sun finally broke through a thin veil of early-afternoon clouds, Ana Ivanovic, the seventh seed and a former world No. 1, and Karolina Pliskova, the eighth seed, were among the players who had been dismissed.

"Just unfortunate," Ivanovic said.

She had plenty of company. The damage was particularly acute among the women, the draw fraying at the seams. After Carla Suarez Navarro, seeded 10th, lost in straight sets to Denisa Allertova, Serena Williams was the lone top-10 player who remained in the top half of the draw ahead of her first-round match against Vitalia Diatchenko, scheduled for Monday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

For Williams, at least, whose historic pursuit of a single-season Grand Slam was the talk of the grounds (hundreds of fans camped out for her prematch practice session), the tournament was already shaping up quite nicely. And she had yet to smash a single serve.

In a highly anticipated meeting of young Americans, CoCo Vandeweghe added to the list of upsets by ousting Sloane Stephens, the No. 29 seed, 6-4, 6-3. It was an impressive effort by Vandeweghe, 23, who appeared so at ease that she consented to a live interview with ESPN after the first set. She could potentially meet Williams in the third round.

Others, including Novak Djokovic, survived a topsy-turvy afternoon. Djokovic, the top seed, needed a tidy 1 hour, 11 minutes to rout Joao Souza, 6-1, 6-1, 6-1. And Venus Williams, seeded 23rd, outlasted Monica Puig, 6-4, 6-7 (7), 6-3, in their first-round match.

"I think by the time I got to the third set, I was able to clean my game up a little bit," Williams said.

Last year, Nishikori defeated Djokovic on the way to the finals here. And there was no reason to doubt that Nishikori was primed for a similar run over the next two weeks. He was coming off a strong summer on hardcourts, having won the tournament in Washington before advancing to the semifinals in Montreal.

Nishikori  led Paire 6-4 in the fourth-set tiebreaker but then lost four straight points - the first on a wayward forehand - as the tiebreaker unraveled like a ball of yarn.

"Just lucky," Paire said.

Nishikori acknowledged that he had let his concentration lapse at the start of the fifth set, making matters worse. Paire, who supplemented his aggressive approach with a mix of drop shots and deep groundstrokes, took advantage.

"It was tough to get rhythm," Nishikori said.

Paire entered the match full of confidence, he said. He had played Nishikori tough at the French Open, losing in four sets. And he knew he had a potent weapon in his serve, which topped out at 133 mph.

"When I come on the court, I say, 'Come on, you can beat Kei,'" Paire said. "It's not like if I play against Roger Federer."

Paire finished with 21 aces and won 77 percent of the points on his first serve. He assessed the win as the most significant of his career.

"But I don't want to stop now," he said.

In the first match on Ashe, Dominika Cibulkova christened the new roof structure by upsetting Ivanovic, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. Cibulkova, a 5-foot-3 Slovak, pumped her fist and swatted a ball into the stands after she held serve to close out the win.

"It was extra energy, extra motivation," Cibulkova said of the new environs at Ashe. "I'll just take big confidence from here."

It was another early departure for Ivanovic, whose career has been wildly inconsistent - and occasionally exasperating. Consider her results at the Grand Slam tournaments this year: a first-round loss at the Australian Open, a semifinal appearance at the French Open and a second-round loss at Wimbledon. Monday afternoon delivered another dose of frustration.

"Definitely disappointed with today's loss, because I thought I did a lot of hard work over the last few months," Ivanovic said, adding: "She used her opportunities better than I did."

For Cibulkova, who reached the finals of the Australian Open in 2014, the victory offered a glimpse at her resolve and confidence. After having surgery on an Achilles' tendon in February, Cibulkova made a halting return in June. Through the summer months, she lost more than she won. But she found her form against Ivanovic by attacking with her forehand and limiting her mistakes.

"I'm feeling 100 percent healthy," Cibulkova said.

Last year, Cibulkova was little more than a footnote here, losing to the teenage sensation CiCi Bellis in the first round. But new opportunities abound. Cibulkova's section of the draw is wide open, in large part because of the absence of Maria Sharapova, who withdrew over the weekend because of an injury.

On Monday, many other seeded players saw their championship dreams evaporate the old-fashioned way: with losses.

© 2015 New York Times News Service