The second day of the US Open was a record-breaking one for two of the oldest players in the tournament.
36-year-old Venus Williams required almost three hours to get past Ukraine’s Katerina Kozlova 6-2, 5-7, 6-4. The marathon victory marked Williams’ 72nd grand slam appearance, a record in the game. The American first made her major debut at the 1997 French Open when world No.26 Belinda Bencic was just two-months-old. Since then Williams has reached 14 grand slam finals, triumphing in seven of them.
Speaking about her historic accomplishment, Williams has insisted that she currently has no plans to retire from the sport.
“I’m grateful and I’m blessed.” She said. “All I’m hoping for is just health that I can keep that record going. I don’t know when I’m going to stop playing. I don’t have plans now. I’m playing too well to be thinking about stopping. I appear to be getting better each and every month.”
Williams now has a 18-0 winning record in first round appearances in Flushing Meadows. Tuesday’s win was her 69th in the tournament.
Another record-breaker was Ivo Karlovic, albeit for a very different reason. Battling his way past Taipei’s Yen-Hsun Lu in a thrilling five-set encounter, the Croat produced a US Open record of 61 aces within one match. In the second set alone he fired 22 of them down the court.
“I knew there were a lot of aces because there was a period [in the second set] when almost every serve was an ace. I knew there was a lot, but I didn’t know it was this many,” Karlovic said about his tally.
Incredibly Karlovic won 91% of his first serves (105/116) throughout the entire match. Last year the 37-year-old produced 1252 aces in 54 matches, giving him an average of 23 per match.
There is still a long way to go if Karlovic wishes to break the all-time record. John Isner produced 113 during his historic 11-hour match against Nicolas Mahut at the 2010 Wimbledon Championships.
