Serena Williams enters 3rd round; Muguruza knocked out

NEW YORK: Serena Williams battled her way through to a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Russia's Margarita Gasparyan in the second round of the US Open on Thursday, as she continued her bid for a record-equaling 24th Grand Slam title.

A dominant Williams sailed through the first set, closing out the first game with one of seven aces on the match, and then breaking her unseeded opponent's serve on the second game to take an early 2-0 lead.

Momentum shifted during the second set as Gasparyan cleaned up her act and the six-time champion committed four double faults. Williams clawed her way back, managing to close out a marathon 16-point game to hold her serve, psyching herself up shouting "Come on!" inside the empty stadium.

For a former champion Marin Cilic has flown under the US Open radar but the Croatian with the booming serve was again making noise on Thursday, advancing to the third round with a 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(2), 7-5 win over Norbert Gombos.

With Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal not at Flushing Meadows, former winners Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray have grabbed the spotlight but Cilic, the 2014 champion, is back in the third round for the seventh straight year.

As ever, Cilic, seeded 31, has taken the long road, needing five sets to see off American Denis Kudla in the opening round and nearly three hours to get past the 104th-ranked Gombos.

Second seed Sofia Kenin has put a lacklustre US Open tune-up behind her as the Australian Open champion showed her game is firing on all cylinders as she marched into the third round.

Kenin, who lost in straight sets in her only warm-up event, rolled over Canadian Leylah Fernandez 6-4, 6-3 and suddenly looks every bit the player who won her maiden Grand Slam this year.

Sorana Cirstea rallied from a set down to upset ninth-seeded Briton Johanna Konta 2-6, 7-6(5), 6-4.

The unseeded Romanian sent down 37 winners and won 13 of 16 points at the net to advance to the third round at Flushing Meadows for the third time in her career.

Daniil Medvedev charged into third round with a 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 demolition of Australian battler Christopher O'Connell.

The Russian third seed, beaten by Rafael Nadal in last year's classic final, broke 116th-ranked O'Connell four times while giving him nothing on serve under a closed roof at Louis Armstrong Stadium.

Medvedev next faces young American JJ Wolf for a place in the last 16.

Eighth seed Roberto Bautista Agut got through a difficult second-round match against Serbian youngster Miomir Kecmanovic with a 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory.

The Spaniard squandered 14 break point opportunities but held his nerve in crucial moments to seal victory in just over 2-1/2 hours.

Tsvetana Pironkova, playing in her first event since 2017, claimed one of the shock upsets at the US Open on Thursday by dispatching double Grand Slam winner Garbine Muguruza 7-5, 6-3 to move into the third round.

After three years away from the WTA Tour following the birth of her son Alexander, the unranked Bulgarian had 10th-seeded Muguruza smashing her racket and mumbling in frustration as the Spaniard's US Open jinx continued to haunt her.

American Madison Keys once again wasted no time on court at Flushing Meadows, defeating Spain's Aliona Bolsova 6-2, 6-1 in less than an hour.

Keys, runner-up in 2017 and a semi-finalist in 2018, won the first three games against her unseeded opponent, who broke her serve after a pair of unforced errors late in the first set but was unable to catch up. Agencies

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