Fourth seed Jelena Jankovic had a tough opening match at the US Open against world No.96 Simona Halep of Romania. As Jankovic said, she wasn’t playing her best tennis, but was able to get through.

The 2008 US Open finalist Jankovic lost the first set and found the 18-year-old Halep serving for the match at 5-4 in the decider. Halep was actually two points away from victory, but Jankovic then broke her serve and won all the remaining games to advance to the second round. Final score: 4-6 6-4 7-5.

Halep made her Grand Slam debut at this year’s French Open and lost in the first round as well.

Seed No.11 Svetlana Kuznetsova was pushed to three sets, 6-2 4-6 6-1, in her first round match against Japanese veteran Kimiko Date Krumm, whose last match in the US Open’s main draw prior to her this year’s appearance was a loss in the first round in 1996.

Kateryna Bondarenko sent home eighth-seeded Li Na with a 2-6 6-4 6-2 victory. Li, who reached at least the fourth round in her last three appearances at the US Open, blamed the heat for the defeat and her inability to cope with it. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Daniela Hantuchova avenged her last week’s 7-6(4) 7-6(2) defeat to Dinara Safina by beating the Russian 6-3 6-4 in the first round of the US Open. Safina has now lost in the first round of a Grand Slam for the second straight time, at Roland Garros and now at the US Open, while she skipped Wimbledon with a lower back injury.

The former world No.1 Safina, currently ranked 50th, fought hard in the match against seed No.24 Hantuchova, and had a chance to level at 5-5 in the second set, but Hantuchova stayed in there and Safina’s long return handed Hantuchova the victory in the end.

Fifth seed Samantha Stosur lost the first set to Elena Vesnina, and dropped serve right in the beginning of the second set, before breaking right back and eventually winning the set in a tiebreak to finally storm through the decider. Final score: 3-6 7-6(2) 6-1.

Defending champion Kim Clijsters cruised through the first set against world No.104 Greta Arn in just 18 minutes, without losing a single game. In the second set, however, the second-seeded Belgian found herself in a 4-0 deficit before winning 12 straight points (three games) and breaking Arn's serve in the 10th game and again in the last game to close out the match with the score 6-0 7-5.

The victory marks Clijsters’ 15th successive win at the US Open. The streak started at the 2005 US Open, which Clijsters won. Then she didn’t compete at the tournament until 2009, the year when she had an amazing run to another US Open title.

French Open champion Francesca Schiavone eased into the second round of the 2010 US Open with a 6-1 6-0 victory over Ayumi Morita. American darling, Melanie Oudin, is also through. She defeated Olga Savchuk 6-3 6-0. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Fellow blogger Rich from Down the Line stopped by Nike Primetime Knockout Event that featured Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer playing doubles with actor Bradley Cooper, model Bar Refaeli and New York Giant Justin Tuck on Pier 54 in New York City.

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Now we know what Maria Sharapova has prepared in her closet for both day and night matches at the 2010 US Open. You may already be familiar with the Nike Striking Court Day Dress from the Striking Clothing Collection, but now we get to see the deep purple dress for night matches as well.

Interestingly, the night dress is not the same as the day one just in different color, the design has been changed too. They followed the same style, sleeveless upper part with the collar, but they disposed of the buttons and the hem in the bottom part.

With tennis dresses you can never say with certainty what you like or prefer until you see the actual design in action, but from these pictures I would tell the night dress is nicer and follows the shape of the body better. Somehow I always prefer night dresses, probably because they are more elegant. (source: Down the Line)

Melanie Oudin was the media darling of the 2009 US Open when she became the youngest American player to advance to the tournament quarterfinals in 10 years. Her thrilling run was accompanied by the word "believe" on her adidas Barricade shoes she personally designed through miadidas.com. For this year’s US Open Oudin chose the word "courage" for her new pair of Barricade 6.0’s.

You know how people love these success stories, so all eyes will be on the 18-year-old Oudin during the 2010 US Open. She will surely need a lot of courage to bare the pressure. Fellow tennis blogger Diane wrote a nice article about the high expectations and Melanie Mania.

In 2010 Oudin has had good runs only in Paris (semifinals), Memphis (quarterfinals), Ponte Vedra Beach (quarterfinals), and Charleston (quarterfinals). She lost in the first or second round of all the other tournaments, including the five US Open Series tournaments she played.