Serena Williams hinted at no the shoulder damage that upset her US Open planning as she released Ekaterina Makarova in straight sets.
The top seed confronted a dubious first-round rival in Makarova, Russia’s reality number 29, however won 6-3 6-3.
Williams, 34, will screen how her shoulder responds before her second-round match against Vania King.
“I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see – I haven’t been able to play that much since Wimbledon,” said Williams.
“Every day I’ll just see how it goes.”
Williams had played only three matches since winning Wimbledon, however awed against 2014 semi-finalist Makarova in the night session.
“I love coming out here in front of this New York crowd, it’s super special,” said the six-time champion, chasing an open-era record 23rd Grand Slam singles title.
“I got off to a really fast start – I wanted to get some momentum.”
Venus Williams, seeded 6th, survived 63 unforced blunders to beat Kateryna Kozlova of Ukraine 6-2 5-7 6-4.
Fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska and fifth seed Simona Halep lost four amusements between them as they advanced, while driving names Stan Wawrinka, Kei Nishikori and Juan Martin del Potro experienced in the men’s draw.
In the interim there was a vexed in the men’s draw as twelfth seeded Belgian David Goffin was beaten 4-6 7-5 6-4 6-0 by 19-year-old American qualifier Jared Donaldson.
Australia’s Bernard Tomic apologized subsequent to making lecherous remarks to an observer – the world number 19 demanded he was “baited”.
Tomic, 23, trailed Damir Dzumhur 5-4 in their first-round match when a trade with an onlooker started.
Tomic said: “I will give you some money to make you feel good.”
“He definitely baited me the whole set for me to say that. But I do apologise,” the Australian said of the spectator. “He was just sort of saying negative stuff.
“I had problems on the other end, as well, with a few people in the corner. They were saying some negative stuff to me, in my language of Serbian-Croatian.
“The microphones didn’t pick that up. But I obviously caught the blame for that.”
The 37-year-old set a US Open record with 61 pros on his way to a first-round triumph – 22 of them in the second set alone as Karlovic passed Richard Krajicek’s record of 49 set 17 years prior.
“I knew there were a lot of aces because at one stage I was serving one on almost every point but I didn’t know it was a record,” said Karlovic.
