Headliners Cruise Through First Round of U.S. Open

Sports Betting News - September 1st, 2009 - Written by John

Venus Williams hasn't won the U.S. Open since 2001 and Monday night it looked like she might not make it past the first round.

Wallowing back and forth, piecing together her game in the first set against Russia's Vera Dushevina, Williams was falling back on her heels. Although she had five aces in the first set, the Wimbledon runner up had 24 unforced errors and four double faults. She only won 21-percent of her second serves and Dushevina put on the pressure with a 7-5 tie break to take the first set 7-6. The second set wasn't going much better. After the two hour mark, Williams was stuck at a 5-5 tie with Dushevina, and was looking for any way to get some momentum away from her opponent.

Then came the power.

Williams finally began to break away, pounding out 16 winners in the set, taking the next two straight games from Dushevina and cruised to an easy win in the third set to advance 7-6, 7-5, 6-3 Monday night. Williams had 11 aces overall, 53 winners (compared to Dushevina's 19) and stroked an average serve speed of 108 MPH. In the next round, Williams takes on 124-ranked Bethanie Mattek-Sands

Her sister, Serena, beat fellow American Alexa Glatch in the third match on Arthur Ashe Court, 6-4, 6-1. She will face Melinda Czink, who is ranked 51st, in the second round.

On the Men's side, the bracket allows the possibility of what all tennis fans want to see, a Championship match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. And while Nadal has yet to take the court, Federer cruised to an easy first-round win over NCAA Champ Devin Britton, and ensured the Switzerland native that he would become Tennis' first $50 million winner. The match took Federer only 88 minutes to complete, winning 6-1, 6-3, 7-5.

"My goal was to not get crushed," said Britton about his match against the world's no. 1-ranked player, "and make it interesting for a little while."

Andy Roddick, who fell to Federer in the epic Wimbledon Championship earlier this year, also cruised to a win, besting Germany's Bjorn Phau, 6-1, 6-4, 6-2. Roddick landed his first serve 81-percent of the time and had nine more aces than Phau

Andy Murray will carry his sterling hard-court record today as he faces Ernests Gulbis at 7 p.m.

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