If this is going to be Andre Agassi's final U.S. Open, he certainly started off on the right foot. The 35-year-old veteran was hardly challenged in a straight set win over Romanian Razvan Sabau, 6-3, 6-3, 6-1. The entire match took only 69 minutes.
'You can't always hope for matches to go that uneventfully,' said Agassi, who won the Open in 1994 and 1999 and was runner-up three times.
'That's an amazing thing,' he told the crowd. 'I've been through a lot of things in my life. A lot of things have taken me away from the lines of a tennis court. But it's never taken me away from here. Twenty years here feels better than 19, so thank you.'
Agassi registered 11 aces and had his serve clocked at 127 miles per hour.
The crowd at Flushing Meadows was very much in Agassi's corner, something the veteran tennis star admitted was not the case when he made his first U.S. Open appearance in 1986.
'It took me a while to understand the mentality of a New Yorker,' Agassi explained. 'They don't have a lot of time to waste. If they're going to do something, they're going to bring it. They expect the same from you. That's something I've grown to appreciate and embrace.'
Elsewhere in the men's bracket, second seeded Rafael Nadel downed qualifier Bobby Reynolds, 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 to advance to the second round. Many tennis experts feel that Nadel has the tough spirited style that New Yorkers may fall in love with for years if he can translate his game from clay where he has been most successful, to the hard courts of the U.S. Open.
On the women's side, both Serena and Venus Williams emerged with first round wins on the opening day of play. Top seeded Maria Sharapova also won, easily defeating Greece's Eleni Daniilidou 6-1, 6-1.
Last year's women's champion, Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova became the first ever defending U.S. Open champ to be eliminated in the first round when she lost to fellow Russian Ekaterina Bychkova 6-3, 6-2.
Kuznetsova tried to view the early exit as a learning experience.
'I've learned a lesson and it's tough,' she added. 'But the tough things make you grow stronger and make you learn. What do I do, kill myself? No.'
'I know how you feel when you don't have any gas and you can't go anymore. I think it's something else,' she added. 'I have to find out what that is. It just takes a while to learn it. It takes a while to play with pressure.'
The highest ranked seed on the men's side to be eliminated was No. 9 Gaston Gaudio who was defeated by wild card Brian Baker of Nashville, Tennessee, 7-6 (9), 6-2, 6-4.
