NEW YORK — Having a Sunday start at the U.S. Open gives some tennis players a chance to get a nice head start on the final major championship tournament of the year.
For fourth-seeded Novak Djokovic, it turned into a stunning head start back to the airport.
The 24-time Grand Slam champion from Serbia was knocked out in the first round of the U.S. Open for the first time, beaten by unseeded Mariano Navone of Argentina, 7-6 (5), 5-7, 4-6, 6-2, 6-1.
Djokovic was 19-0 in first-round matches at the U.S. Open and hadn’t lost his opening match in any major since the 2006 Australian Open.
“It’s a good record, another one. But yeah, I’m not really thinking about it,” Djokovic said. “Of course, I’ve been very proud of all the achievements in the past, but now is now.”
And now the four-time champion in Flushing Meadows looks every bit of his 39 years, vomiting and battling leg problems during a night match that lasted more than 4 1/2 hours in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Djokovic made 70 unforced errors in a painful performance.
“It’s something that I’ve been carrying, unfortunately, pretty much every match this year: vomiting, throwing up, a serious issue there,” Djokovic said. “Then my whole body starts to collapse, basically cramping and pain. Yeah, the back just gave up in the end and shoulder, and I couldn’t close it out.”
With this defeat, 21 years to the day of his U.S. Open debut, the question now lingers as to whether this was Djokovic’s final match at this or any Grand Slam. After the loss, he said he was “trying to address really what’s going on and how far I can go this way.”
Navone, 25, won his first singles tournament title on the ATP Tour earlier this year.
“Now I have to recover,” Navone said. “It’s almost 12 o’clock.”
It was a lengthy first day of play, with Venus Williams and fellow wild card Sofia Kenin not getting on the court for their all American women’s singles matchup until past midnight — after the meeting was set to move to another stadium before the two players decided to wait and keep it in the main venue.
Kenin, 27, beat the 46-year-old Williams, 6-2, 7-6 (6), in the wee hours of Monday.
Kenin needed just 32 minutes to win the first set, but Williams took advantage of mistakes and made some shots in the second that gave the late-staying crowd reason to cheer, rallying from down 4-2 to force a tiebreak before losing several set points and striking the ball into the net to end it.
“I had a lot of great moments,” Williams said. “As the match progressed, I just kept pushing myself to try to find my best tennis and to find my rhythm. It’s not easy to do in the first round. It’s not easy to do at 1 or 2 a.m. in the morning to try to find your rhythm and play your best, but I tried my best.”
Nearly 12 hours earlier, third-seeded Jessica Pegula again experienced the benefits of the Sunday start that began last year.
“It is a little bit weird, but I did kind of enjoy that I could breathe for the next couple of days and everyone else is still freaking out about whether they’re going to win their first round,” she said.
Djokovic later experienced the downside.
“We were just talking about it, and I said, it’s so nice to play on Sunday when you win. But if you lose it’s not nice, because you feel like the tournament didn’t even start and you’re out of it,” said Marta Kostyuk, the No. 11 seed in the women’s singles bracket.
Pegula and Kostyuk both won easily and now the get the benefit of any extra day of rest before returning for the second round, where Pegula will play Kenin, who won the 2020 Australian Open.
Pegula leads the WTA tour with 46 single match victories this season, when she has won two tournament titles and has reached three other finals. Pegula can become No. 1 in the rankings if she wins her first major title and No. 2 Elena Rybakina loses before the semifinals.
Kostyuk beat Storm Hunter, 6-4, 6-1, for a strong start on the hard courts of New York after reaching the semifinals on the red clay of the French Open and the green grass of Wimbledon.
Some of the biggest headliners don’t begin until Monday. Two-time reigning women’s singles champion Aryna Sabalenka plays her opening match against Camila Osorio before Carlos Alcaraz, who won his second U.S. Open title last year, plays his first singles match since April after recovering from a right wrist injury.
Past U.S. Open champions Naomi Osaka, Iga Swiatek, Sloane Stephens and Stan Wawrinka are also on the Monday schedule, along with reigning Wimbledon women’s singles champion Linda Noskova and men’s contenders such as Ben Shelton, Arthur Fils, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Frances Tiafoe.
Daniil Medvedev, the 2021 U.S. Open champion, shook off his miserable preparation for the tournament by beating Hugo Gaston 6-4, 6-2, 6-4. The No. 7 seed was just 1-3 in the North American hard-court swing, usually a time he thrives.
“Last couple of weeks was not easy,” Medvedev said. “But I’m happy that today I managed to produce high-level tennis.”
Other winners Sunday included No. 9 Elina Svitolina, No. 19 Jasmine Paolini and No. 31 Leylah Fernandez, the 2021 U.S. Open runner-up. No. 27 seed Barbora Krejcikova, a two-time Grand Slam singles champion, lost 7-6 (4), 6-2 to Kamilla Rakhimova.
American Tommy Paul, the No. 20 seed, bounced back from losing a first-set tiebreak to Coleman Wong to win 6-7 (3), 6-1, 6-3, 6-3. Wong a year ago became the first man from Hong Kong to win an Open-era Grand Slam men’s singles match on the way to reaching the round of 32.
Seven matches couldn’t be completed because of rain — and one was delayed even though it was being played in the other stadium with a retractable roof. There was a mechanical problem with one of the sensors at Louis Armstrong Stadium, and even after the roof finally closed, the court had to be dried before No. 15 seed Alexander Bublik beat J.J. Wolf.
Maric Cilic, the 2014 U.S. Open champion, and 2022 runner-up Casper Ruud both withdrew with injuries.
Though the main draws didn’t begin until Sunday, action at the U.S. Open has already been going on for nearly a week. Large crowds gathered for the mixed doubles tournament, an exhibition headlined by new International Tennis Hall of Fame inductee Roger Federer’s return to Flushing Meadows and the singles qualifying tournaments, with admission to the grounds free.
Fans who came for the first time Sunday may have noticed a tournament in transition. The U.S. Open is in the second year of a three-year renovation of Arthur Ashe Stadium, the main venue at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The improvements in the $800 million project include the addition of some lower-level seating, upgrades and additions of entertainment areas and the construction of a player performance center.
“Please pardon our appearance while we are reimagining spectacular,” reads a sign above the entrance to Ashe.
The project is scheduled to be completed in time for next year’s tournament.