With 39 singles matches to play after Monday’s rain, massive comebacks continued to be the story of the tournament.
One of most exciting comebacks of the day was by No. 5 Ons Jabeur on Center Court, who trailed Anhelina Kalinina 1-5 in the third set. Pulling inspiration from Venus Williams’ comeback from that score on Monday, Jabeur fought for a thrilling 6-3, 6-7(2), 7-6(2) victory.
Fan favorite Gael Monfils continued his comeback from injury with an upset of No. 13 seed Cameron Norrie. After dropping the first set, Monfils roared to a 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 win. It’s his best win since…last week, when he defeated world No. 4 Stefanos Tsitsipas enroute to the quarterfinals in Canada. After starting the year 0-5, Monfils has won six of his last eight matches.
Top seed Carlos Alcaraz put out the fire of qualifier Jordan Thompson who was looking for his second straight upset. Alcaraz won the big points to defeat the Australian 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 in a three-hour match. Former champion Madison Keys wasn’t as lucky, falling in her comeback bid to Elise Mertens 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
American qualifier Ann Li had perhaps the biggest comeback of the day. After dropping the first set at love, she regrouped to defeat Madga Linette 0-6, 7-6, 6-2. It was Li’s first WTA Tour match win this year after having success on the lower-tier ITF tour most of the season. Her hard-fought win earns her a second-round meeting with world No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka.
American wild card Danielle Collins has been on fire as of late and took out Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3, 6-1 to earn a rematch with world No. 1 Iga Swiatek. Last week in Canada, Collins reached the quarterfinals as a qualifier and had Swiatek on the ropes before falling in three sets. Not to be outdone, Sloane Stephens treated the Center Court crowd to a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 upset of defending champion and No. 6 seed Caroline Garcia.
In a battle of wild cards, 38-year-old Stan Wawrinka played just two games Tuesday to defeat 22-year-old Brandon Nakashima 6-3, 6-7, 6-3 in a match that began Monday. He now faces No. 10 Frances Tiafoe. In only the second first-round contest between past tournament champions in the Open Era since Jimmy Connors defeated Roscoe Tanner in 1984, 2021 winner Alexander Zverev defeated 2017 champion Grigor Dimitrov 6-2, 6-2.
French Open finalist Karoline Muchova and qualifier Cristina Busca upset the No. 12 and 13 seeds, respectively, with come-from-behind three-set wins, and 18-year-old qualifier Linda Noskova also won in three after dropping the first set to Liudmila Samsonova.
There were several nail-biting tiebreaks in Tuesday’s matches. No. 9 seed Taylor Fritz held on to win a first-set tiebreak 16-14, the second longest on the ATP Tour this year, enroute to victory. Emil Ruusuvuori won the first-set tiebreak against No. 7 seed Andrey Rublev 12-10 then held on to win a third-set tiebreak for the upset. In addition to Ruusuvuori and Jabeur, Mayar Sherif and Hubert Hurkacz won third-set tiebreaks to advance.
A popular doubles match on Tuesday featured Novak Djokovic playing his first match in the U.S. in nearly two years. But he and partner Nikola Cacic were up against some of the best doubles players in the world – former Western & Southern Open champion Jamie Murray and last year’s doubles finalist Michael Venus – and Murray and Venus put on a doubles clinic winning 6-4, 6-2.
Two NCAA singles champions, Cincinnati native Peyton Stearns and Emma Navarro, teamed up to defeat Victoria Azarenka and Beatriz Haddad Maia in a first-round doubles match 7-5, 6-3.
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