NEW YORK: Carlos Alcaraz was given a scare by Australian qualifier Li Tu in the first round of the US Open on Tuesday before going on to seal a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory.
Four-times Grand Slam champion Alcaraz, who lost to Novak Djokovic in the final of the Paris Olympics, got off to a hot start before the errors began to pile up and he dropped the second set.
The Spaniard restored order by whipping a forehand to break in the third for a 4-3 lead and never looked back, sealing the win with his eighth ace to set up a second-round meeting with Dutch player Botic van de Zandschulp.
Tu, an Adelaide native who stepped away from tennis in 2014 for six years to get a degree and start a tennis academy, won three qualifying matches to earn his first appearance on Arthur Armstrong Stadium court against the third seed.
Alcaraz won the French Open in June and defeated Djokovic to triumph at Wimbledon a month later but was left bitterly disappointed after falling short at the Paris Games before suffering a shock defeat by Gael Monfils at the Cincinnati Open.
Top-seeded Italian Jannik Sinner shrugged off the doping furore surrounding him and overcame a bad start to reach the second round with a 2-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-2 victory over American Mackenzie McDonald.
Sinner, who became embroiled in controversy in the week before the year's final Grand Slam after the International Tennis Integrity Agency said that he tested positive twice for an anabolic agent in March, was slow out of the starting blocks.
The Australian Open champion committed several unforced errors in the opening set, which McDonald took full advantage of to claim an early lead.
Stefanos Tsitsipas's US Open woes continued as he suffered a 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 defeat to Australia's Thanasi Kokkinakis.
After losing a close first set in a tie-break, Tsitsipas rallied to win the second and level the match, but appeared to have an abdominal issue late on before slumping to defeat in three hours and 54 minutes.
Tsitsipas, a two-time Grand Slam finalist, has a poor record at Flushing Meadows and has never made it past the third round of the US Open.
He also struggled in the build-up to the tournament, winning just one of his three matches at the Canadian Open and Cincinnati Masters.
Stefanos Tsitsipas has a poor record at Flushing Meadows, never gone past the third round of the US Open. For Kokkinakis, it was a first win at the New York Grand Slam since 2019.
He next faces Portugal's Nuno Borges, who beat Argentina's Federico Coria 6-2, 6-4, 6-1. Agencies
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