NEW YORK (AP)—Defending champion Kim Clijsters briefly lost her footing on a windy day before recovering in time to win her 15th straight match at the U.S. Open.
The second-seeded Belgian beat Hungary’s Greta Arn 6-0, 7-5 in the first round Monday. She fell behind 4-0 in the second set, and the 104th-ranked Arn had a chance to serve out the set at 5-4. But Clijsters got the break, then did it again to clinch the straight-set victory.
Clijsters said she wasn’t aggressive enough playing with the wind, waiting for the ball instead of moving up for it.
“She kind of put me under pressure a little bit where it should have been the other way around,” she said.
A year ago, Clijsters was a wild-card entry in only her third tournament back after 2 1/2 years away from the sport. Now she’s one of the favorites to win the Open.
“Other players kind of didn’t really know what to expect,” Clijsters said.
Melanie Oudin and Francesca Schiavone also know how quickly perceptions can change. Oudin struggled with higher expectations since her crowd-pleasing run to the U.S. Open quarterfinals last year. So did Schiavone after her breakthrough French Open title in June.
But neither showed any signs of the pressure in cruising to dominant first-round wins.
Oudin, 18, needed just 56 minutes to beat Olga Savchuk of Ukraine 6-3, 6-0. Schiavone, the Italian who won her first Grand Slam weeks before her 30th birthday, dispatched Ayumi Morita of Japan 6-1, 6-0 in 58 minutes.
If anything, Schiavone seems to be having fun in the spotlight. Asked why she’s a fan favorite, she playfully replied, “I attract them because I’m beautiful.”
Schiavone acknowledged that maybe she’s a bit more motivated at a Grand Slam than at other tournaments. Schiavone, seeded No. 6, had been just 3-6 since winning at Roland Garros. She lost in the first round at Wimbledon and dropped her opening match at three other tournaments.
She was pleased that her first-round match was in the grandstand—a year ago, she was relegated to an outer court.
“I like to do it, because adrenaline is coming up and I enjoy much more than play in faraway court,” she said with a laugh. “Maybe because I am 30 years old and now I want to enjoy with people.”
Venus Williams, a two-time champion in New York, and Roger Federer, who counts five U.S. Opens among his record 16 Grand Slam titles, were scheduled to play in the night session.
The ninth-seeded Roddick celebrated his 28th birthday by beating Stephane Robert of France 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.
Roddick, who recently discovered he had a mild case of mononucleosis, was under doctor’s orders to limit his physical activity, but he said he feels a lot better now than he did a month or so ago.
“It’s going the right way,” he said. “To be honest, once you decide to play, I think you throw all the excuses and everything else out the window. If I decide to play, then it’s up to me to give 100 percent of what I have. So it’s not something I really want to discuss too much from this point forward.”
Two-time French Open runner-up Robin Soderling was pushed to five sets by a qualifier ranked 214th in the world. The No. 5-seeded Swede beat Andreas Haider-Maurer of Austria 7-5, 6-3, 6-7 (2), 5-7, 6-4.
Other winners included No. 6 Nikolay Davydenko of Russia, No. 11 Marin Cilic of Croatia, No. 13 Jurgen Melzer of Austria, No. 17 Frenchman Gael Monfils and No. 22 Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain, while No. 27 Fernando Gonzalez Chile quit in the third set of his match against Croatia’s Ivan Dodig because of a knee injury.
Women moving into the second round included French Open runner-up Sam Stosur of Australia, two-time major finalist Elena Dementieva of Russia, Belarusian No. 10 Victoria Azarenka, No. 13 Marion Bartoli of France, No. 16 Shahar Peer of Isreal, and No. 24 Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia, who beat Russian former No. 1 Dinara Safina 6-3, 6-4.