I’m glad she’s officially announced her retirement, to give her fans a chance to properly say goodbye to the all-time great. I don’t expect her to advance far in the tournament, but you never know.
I guess this means Venus is actually going to outlast her? Is Venus still playing singles?
Is Serena never going to play doubles again? I hope she still does that.
Just watched 40 year-old Serena lose 2 and 4 to Belinda Bencic. Very warm reception from the Toronto crowd, strongly cheering even her mildly won points. (And an almost royal welcoming just prior to her coming onto the court.)
Her second hard court match since the 2021 Aussie semis. She won the first round in straight sets, but in this match there was still lots of rust, along with weight. Some of her unforced errors were just outright doozies, and moved considerably slower than she used to. All perfectly understandable, obviously, but nonetheless disheartening too, kinda.
The National Bank Open is one of three remaining tournies she’ll play, the other two being Cincinatti (Western and Southern Open, starting next Monday) and finishing it all off with the US Open (two Mondays later).
Her pro debut, as a 14 year-old, was at a tier three event over in Quebec City, 27 years ago.
Awesome that she was feted not just with flowers and paintings but also Leafs and Raptors jerseys. 
Gotta say I got a little dry-thoated watching Serena get a bit choked up during the on-court chat afterwards. Judging by her level of play I can’t see her competing in these final tournies as anything but ceremonial.
I’m wondering if the Federer camp and the S. Williams camp communicated and they arranged to retire at separate events.
I am still betting that Roger is going to retire at the Basel tournament in Switzerland this year.
Serena I can handle. Roger will be heartbreaking to me even though I kind of know it is over.
No Roger, no Novak at the US Open.
Nadal is the only of the big three in this thing, but is he healthy enough to win it? I’m certainly cheering for Nadal. I’m completely fine with him being #1 in Grand Slams. It’s clear Roger will not win another one in his career(I still think he’s retiring in a few months).
US Open matches start in a few minutes.
Serena Williams will play Danka Kovinić (Montenegro), who is currently ranked 80 in the WTA. Both are unseeded. I’m not sure what the betting line is, but UTR rates them nearly the same.
Rafa Nadal doesn’t play until tomorrow. He’s seeded 2, so should be able to make the semi-finals easily, although ongoing injuries might make it less than easy.
With so many matches over the next several days, I usually try to tune in to Americans playing. I love watching unseeded Americans, just to see who’s up and coming.
On the women’s side, curious to see how far Serena gets this year, and if Coco Gauff will have her breakthrough. Or maybe we’ll have fun-to-watch unknowns again like last year with Emma Raducanu and Leylah Fernandez, neither of whom have done that well this year.
This article says that technically there are 3 men this year who can be called “defending champion”, Nadal, Thiem and Medvedev: https://www.usopen.org/en_US/news/articles/2022-08-28/photos_2022_us_open_players_get_ready_for_day_1_with_final_practices.html
He should do fairly well, but is his abdominal pull(strain? tear?) really healed all the way? I have to think he may struggle. Then again, no Novak or Roger. He should move along well.
Looking at the bracket, Rounds 1 and 2 are only unseeded. Round 3 could see him against Miomir Kecmanović (32, Serbia). Round 4 could be against Diego Schwartzman (14, Argentina) or Frances Tiafoe (22, U.S.). I don’t see Rafa losing against any of them, even if he’s not at 100%.
Quarterfinal will be tougher. Seeded opponents coming up to face him then are Cameron Norrie (7, U.K.), Andrey Rublev (9, unnamed country), Denis Shapovalov (19, Canada), Holger Rune (28, Denmark). I could see a long match against Norrie or Rublev, but not Rafa losing. So semi-final will be the first one he’s at genuine risk. (I’m not combing through that bracket at the moment. 
)
I don’t quite trust him to not play when he’s too injured. I hope he doesn’t get seriously hurt from playing while injured. Pain relievers can prevent you from realizing how bad it is.
Stan Wawrinka just retired after two sets.
Another player that can, at least in the past, defeat Nadal.
I miss big server Ivo Karlovic. 
Serena won in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3. On Wednesday she’ll play against Anett Kontaveit (2, Estonia), who is undoubtedly the favorite. I do think Serena has a decent chance, though.
Some upsets yesterday.
Zhang Shuai (China) defeated Jil Teichmann (30, Switzerland) 6-4, 6-2.
Evgeniya Rodina (unnamed country) defeated Martina Trevisan (27, Italy) 7-5, 6-1.
Harriet Dart (U.K.) defeated Daria Kasatkina (10, unnamed country) 7-6 (10-8), 1-6, 6-3.
Daria Snigur (Ukraine) defeated Simona Halep (7, Romania) 6-2, 0-6, 6-4. Simona had just won the Canadian Open on August 14. I guess two weeks is not enough to fully recover. Simona always has a large Romania crowd to cheer her on; this was surely a huge disappointment.
Wu Yibing (China) defeated Nikoloz Basilashvili (31, Georgia) 6-4, 6-5, 6-0.
Andy Murray (U.K.) defeated Francisco Cerundolo (24, Argentina) 7-5, 6-3, 6-3. No matter what the seeds say, Andy is a champion and doesn’t go down easily.
J.J. Wolf (U.S.) defeated Roberto Bautista Agut (Spain, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4. This was close. Wolf has potential.
Brandon Holt (U.S.) defeated Taylor Fritz (10, U.S.) 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (7-1), 6-3, 6-4. Great match and probably the biggest disappointment for me for the day.
Daniel Galán (Colombia) defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas (4, Greece) 6-0, 6-1, 3-6, 7-5. Yes, Stefanos lost the first 11 games. He is a great player in terms of talent and skill, but his mindset is all over the place.
In other interesting news, Bianca Andreescu (Canada), winner of the 2019 U.S. Open, had to go back to the locker room immediately before her match because her Nike sportswear was just not doing it. Apparently it was riding up on her forehand swings. She switched to another Nike outfit to start the match.
Nick Kyrgios (23, Australia) and his doubles partner Thanasi Kokkinakis (Australia) got a really unlucky draw and had to play each other in Round 1 singles. Nick won in straight sets 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4).
By the way, if you google “us open tennis”, Google has a nice interface to see all the scores and some highlights.
Nadal just lost the first set of the first round.
I’m not much of a tennis fan, but watched a few minutes of Galan’s upset of Tsitsipas last night. It was early in the 4th set, Tsitsipas was continuing a comeback after losing the first two sets then winning the third, and had Galan down 2-0 with an 0-30 lead in the next game, threatening to break Galan’s service again. One of the TV announcers snidely announced that “the wheels are coming off” for Galan, just before Galan recovered to win the game, and subsequently take the set and the match.
Now whose wheels are coming off, eh bozo?
Nadal came back and won, but the other guy really did push him quite hard. A very good early challenge for Nadal, the kind of challenge it is hard to get by practicing.
2 big names on the women’s side out in straight sets, Venus Williams and defending champion Emma Raducanu.
Raducanu has had the worst 12 months following first slam win, of any woman in over forty years.
2R-2R-2R-1R exits in 2022 slams. Win-loss record of 14-18 since last year’s US Open. Has not won more than two matches in a row at any time. Has lost her first match in 9 of the 18 tournaments she’s played.
As mentioned by others, Alizé Cornet (France) defeated Emma Raducanu (11, U.K.) 6-3, 6-3. Emma has scads of talent, but I think she’s lacking in game planning. That is, it looks to me like she comes out expecting to win by simply outplaying her opponent without consideration for her opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. This is a common flaw for talented players who developed their physical tennis skills early. She won matches easily when she first went pro because she was new; now that the others have watched her matches, they know how to take her down. Alizé is one of those players who’s been around for a long time without seemingly able to break through. She is a real workhorse–she hustled the whole match to keep returning the ball and Emma would eventually make an error. Emma couldn’t adjust.
Qinwen Zhang (China) defeated Jeļena Ostapenko (16, Latvia) 6-3, 3-6, 6-4.
Yulia Putintseva (Kazakhstan) defeated Amanda Anisimova (24, U.S.) 6-3, 6-3.
Clara Burel (France) defeated Elena Rybakina (25, Kazakhstan) 6-4, 6-4. Elena won the Wimbledon earlier this year, but her seed doesn’t reflect that. Still should’ve won this match.
Irina Begu (Romania) defeated Elise Mertens (32, Germany) 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.
Surprisingly, all the seeded men won on Tuesday.
Sam Querrey lost in the first round.
Oh, and he just retired from professional tennis as well. Wow. I think sadly, guys like him will be remembered in a big group of American men that never were consistently in the top 10 in the world, an anomaly over the course of tennis history.
For those that don’t know, Brandon Holt is former 2x US Open Tracy Austin’s son.