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World number one Simona Halep was swept aside 6-2, 6-4 by 44th-ranked Kaia Kanepi on Monday, the first top-seeded woman ever to lose in the US Open first round.
It was a second straight first-round exit at Flushing Meadows for Romania's Halep, who dropped her opening match to Maria Sharapova last year.
The French Open champion had no answer for Kanepi's powerful groundstrokes.
The Estonian fired 26 winners to Halep's nine, and even her 28 unforced errors weren't enough to derail her challenge as she brought the rallies to quick ends and remorselessly punished Halep's second serve.
"Yesterday I thought I have beaten just once the world number one, today I had another chance," said a beaming Kanepi, who defeated then No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki in Tokyo back in 2011.
Kanepi, whose six Grand Slam quarter-final appearances include a run to the last eight in New York last year, earned a second-round meeting with Swiss qualifier Jil Teichmann, a 6-3, 6-0 winner over Dalila Jakupovic.
Kaia Kanepi looked like a dangerous first-round draw for world No 1 Simona Halep, and so it proved. For the first time in US Open history, the women’s top seed lost in the opening round of the tournament.
Afterwards, former world No 5 Daniela Hantuchova, who is one of the leading pundits on Amazon Prime Video’s US Open coverage, joined Catherine Whitaker (Amazon Prime) and David Law (BBC 5 Live) on The Tennis Podcast to reflect on the match.
Where did it all go wrong for Halep? Has she become over-reliant on the on-court coaching advice of Darren Cahill? And why was she unable to mount a comeback?
Halep’s on-court negativity, which can often seep into her game, was there for all to see on Monday. Hantuchova believes these moments of intense self-criticism, which have a detrimental impact on her tennis, are a cry for help. According to Hantuchova, this is in stark contrast to the way in which Andy Murray uses his frustration to fire himself up and play better.
Murray came from a set down to defeat James Duckworth. Law and Whitaker discuss how he looked physically and rate his chances against Fernando Verdasco in the next round.
