Serena Williams begins US Open with a convincing singles win
Williams will open doubles play with her sister Venus on Wednesday.
Williams will face world No. 2 Anett Kontaveit of Estonia in the round of 64, also on Wednesday. It will be their first career meeting.
After early struggles with her serve Monday evening, Williams took 10 of the final 13 games against Kovinić, a 27-year-old from Montenegro who is ranked 80th in the world.
After the match, during a ceremony celebrating her tennis career, Williams said she got a boost from the vocal crowd of almost 24,000 people.
It was Williams’ third match since announcing she will “evolve away from tennis.”
“I have never liked the word retirement. It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me. I’ve been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people,” Williams said in a Vogue article published earlier this month.
“Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution. I’m here to tell you that I’m evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me,” she said.
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