August 30, 2020 - Croatian tennis players have learned their opponents in the first round of the US Open, to be held from Monday, August 31, 2020, in New York.
The best-ranked Croatian tennis player Borna Coric will play Spaniard Pablo Andujar in the first round of the US Open. Marin Cilic will play against the American Denis Kudla, and Ivo Karlovic will face the Frenchman Richard Gasquet, while the two female Croatian representatives will face two Czech opponents - Petra Martic against Tereza Martincova, and Donna Vekic against Kristyna Plišková.
The US Open begins Monday, August 31, 2020, at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York and will end September 13.
For the first time since 2003, there were no title defenders in the draw, as Canadian Bianca Andreescu and Spaniard Rafael Nadal will not participate in this year’s tournament.
The first seed is the best tennis player in the world, Novak Djokovic, who will play in the first round against the Bosnian-Herzegovinian representative Damir Dzumhur. The second seed, Austrian Dominic Thiem, will play against Spaniard Jaume Munar.
In the women's competition, only four of the top ten tennis players were in the draw, and the first-seed is third in the WTA rankings, Karolina Pliškova from the Czech Republic. Her rival is Ukrainian Angelina Kalinin. The second-seed is the current winner of the Australian Open, American Sofia Kenin, who will play against Belgium's Yanina Wickmayer in the first round.
Returning to the court, Belgium's Kim Clijsters will play against Russia's 21st-seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, and Serena Williams, who will try to win her 24th individual Grand Slam title, has won compatriot Kristie Ahn as her rival.
Coric (ATP - 33rd) has never played against 34-year-old Andujar (ATP - 53rd), and the winner of the 2014 US Open Marin Cilic (ATP - 37th) beat 28-year-old Kudl (ATP - 111th) in four sets (6-4, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5) five years ago in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon.
The oldest player in the tournament, 41-year-old Ivo Karlovic (ATP - 125th), will compete in his 16th appearance at the US Open for the seventh time in his career against seven-year-younger Gasquet (ATP - 50th), who defeated him five times. But Karlovic's only victory came at the US Open nine years ago, when Ivo celebrated in four sets (6-4, 6-2, 2-6, 7-6).
Coric was the 27th-seed in the upper part of the draw, while Cilic (31st) and the unplaced Karlovic were in the lower half.
Petra Martic (WTA - 14th) was placed eighth, and 25-year-old Tereza Martincova (WTA - 135th) was defeated (6-4, 7-5) in their only match played in 2015 in Bad Gastein, Austria.
Donna Vekic (WTA - 24th) will enter the duel against 28-year-old Kristyna Plišková (WTA - 64th) with a 2-1 advantage in mutual duels, and as the 18th-seed of this year's US Open, where she will defend her best result at the Grand Slam tournaments - last year's quarterfinals, when Swiss Belinda Benčić stopped her.
Martic was in the upper half and Vekic in the lower half of the draw.
Source: HRT
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