{"id":51874,"date":"2022-08-29T21:13:17","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T01:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=51874"},"modified":"2022-08-29T21:16:03","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T01:16:03","slug":"serena-williams-defeats-danka-kovinic-in-us-open-first-round-2-seed-anett-kontaveit-awaits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2022\/08\/29\/serena-williams-defeats-danka-kovinic-in-us-open-first-round-2-seed-anett-kontaveit-awaits\/","title":{"rendered":"Serena Williams defeats Danka Kovinic in US Open First Round, #2 Seed Anett Kontaveit awaits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The farewell tour will go on for at least another match as Serena Williams booked her spot in the second round of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/us-open\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">US Open<\/a> with a 6-3 6-3 win over Danka Kovinic.<\/p>\n<p>There was an electric atmosphere inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, the capacity crowd was fully engaged from the very first point, unlike any other first round match.<\/p>\n<p>Williams made a concerning start, particularly on serve where she hit quicky racked up five double faults. The 6-time former US Open champion steadily improved form 2-3 down in the first set, reeling off four straight games to take control of the match.<\/p>\n<p>Williams looked much more comfortable in the second set; all aspects of her game improved as the match went on. Most encouragingly was the improvement in her serve which started to look the famous serve of old. Williams&#8217; movement, as well, was on point. There were times when viewers could almost forget that the 23-time Grand Slam champion is 40 years old.<\/p>\n<p>There was not much drama within the match once Williams found her rhythm. Kovinic wasn&#8217;t great on serve, but there was nothing she could have done anyway against the way the American was playing. In front of a packed house, all hoping Williams advanced to play another day, Serena found her form and put her opponent away.<\/p>\n<p>A much tougher test awaits on Wednesday. Next up for the 23-time major champion is a second round meeting with World No. 2 Anett Kontaveit. It will be the first time the pair have gone head-to-head, adding to the drama of the occasion.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"MpLvbskgQ6l0LvLOxddfwQ\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1419171442\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'MpLvbskgQ6l0LvLOxddfwQ',sig:'8mTYvw9H0cHrdTBB4jHPZQ5gmrTRBi1w3_jBQTjKIIY=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1419171442',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The farewell tour will go on for at least another match as Serena Williams booked her spot in the second round of the US Open with a 6-3 6-3 win over Danka Kovinic. There was an electric atmosphere inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, the capacity crowd was fully engaged from the very first point, unlike any [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3921,"featured_media":51876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2,9,4],"tags":[18003,887,8537,25],"class_list":["post-51874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-open","category-featured","category-news","category-wta","tag-2022-us-open","tag-anett-kontaveit","tag-danka-kovinic","tag-serena-williams"],"modified_by":"Yesh Ginsburg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}