2019 U.S. Open: Live Updates From First-Round Matches

How to watch: ESPN2; streaming on ESPN+ and ESPN3, 11 a.m.

How to get there: Take the 7 subway line or the Long Island Rail Road to Mets-Willets Point.

Monday’s scores: Men | Women

Serena vs. Sharapova: Not much of a rivalry

When the women’s singles draw was announced on Thursday, one first-round match outshone the rest: Serena Williams vs. Maria Sharapova.

Not surprisingly, the meeting of the two superstars will lead off the first night session of the tournament at Arthur Ashe Stadium (after an opening ceremony featuring the Tony winners Ben Platt and Ali Stroker at 7 p.m.).

Williams and Sharapova have met 21 times, including in the finals of all the other three Grand Slam tournaments and the Olympics, but they have never faced each other at the U.S. Open.

Williams has beaten Sharapova the last 18 times they have played, dating to 2005, and holds a 19-2 career record against her. They have not faced each other since the quarterfinals of the 2016 Australian Open — before Sharapova served a 15-month suspension for a doping violation and Serena Williams took time off to have a child.

Both women have been plagued by injuries this season. Back spasms hindered the eighth-seeded Williams at her last two tournaments, and Sharapova missed much of the season because of a shoulder injury. She is currently ranked 87th, the reason a first-round meeting with Williams was even possible.

Up Next: Sofia Kenin vs. CoCo Vandeweghe

As day shifts into night, two Americans known for their fiery demeanors will play on the Grandstand. Kenin, 20, has risen to No. 20 in a breakout year, winning her first singles title and beating Serena Williams to reach the fourth round at the French Open, her best result at a Grand Slam tournament.

Vandeweghe, a semifinalist at the U.S. Open two years ago, had surgery on her right ankle at the beginning of 2019 and has played only three tournaments since her return this summer. She has won only one match in singles. Although she was ranked in the top 10 at the beginning of 2018, it may take her some time before she returns to that level.

Reilly Opelka upsets No. 11 Fabio Fognini.

Reilly Opelka, a big-serving 6-foot-11 American making his U.S. Open debut, knocked out 11th-seeded Fabio Fognini, 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (6), 6-3.

Opelka, who turns 22 on Wednesday, has risen from No. 102 to No. 42 in the rankings this year and won his first tour title in February at the New York Open, which was held about 20 miles west of Flushing Meadows in Uniondale. He had notable wins at the Australian Open, beating John Isner in the first round, and at Wimbledon, where he ousted the three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka in the third round.

On the women’s side, the biggest upset so far was No. 14 Angelique Kerber’s 7-5, 0-6, 6-4 loss to Kristina Mladenovic, who is being coached by Sascha Bajin. He was Naomi Osaka’s coach last year when she won the Open.

Novak Djokovic and Venus Williams claim easy wins.

The past U.S. Open champions Novak Djokovic and Venus Williams moved on with ease. Djokovic, the top seed on the men’s side, rolled past Roberto Carballés Baena, 6-4, 6-1, 6-4.

Venus Williams, who won the Open in 2000 and 2001, was even more impressive, dropping just one game in a 6-1, 6-0 rout of Zheng Saisai, who won the tournament in San Jose, Calif., this month.

“I love, love, love my job,” an ebullient Williams said in her on-court interview, adding that she was looking forward to watching her sister Serena play later.

Serena will face Maria Sharapova in three hours in the blockbuster match of the first round.

The U.S. Open honors Althea Gibson.

Early Monday, as U.S. Open matches began, a corner of the tennis world paused to honor one of its greatest champions.

Her name was Althea Gibson. She grew up in Harlem and in 1950 became the first African-American to play the U.S. National Championships, the precursor to the Open. She was the first black player to be ranked No. 1 in the world, and to win a Grand Slam title, at the 1956 French Championships. She also won the U.S. Championships and Wimbledon twice.

To honor her, the United States Tennis Association commissioned a sculpture, which was unveiled Monday near Arthur Ashe Stadium.

The 12-foot structure, by Eric Goulder, consists of six granite blocks, representing the evolving chapters of history that culminated in Gibson’s hard-fought victories. A likeness of the young Gibson’s head emerges from one of the blocks while another one is inscribed with a quotation from her autobiography: “I hope that I have accomplished just one thing; that I have been a credit to tennis and my country.”

The statue is only the second honoring a tennis champion to be erected at the tennis center; the other is of Ashe. Gibson’s achievements have been somewhat overlooked by history in part because she played before the Open era, which began in 1968.

“It’s simple. She’s the first African-American to break the color barrier in our sport,” said Katrina Adams, the former president of the U.S.T.A. and the first African-American to hold the position. “By doing so, she made it possible for every person of color after her to have a chance to achieve their goals in the sport. This is a tribute that’s long overdue — period.”

Visitors to the tennis center can download information and an augmented reality experience about Gibson to their smartphones near the statue through the U.S. Open app.

Gibson died in 2003. Monday’s event drew a crowd of about 50 Gibson supporters including her former doubles partner, Angela Buxton; Billie Jean King; Zina Garrison, who was a student of Gibson’s; Fran Grey, the executor of her estate; and a film producers interested in making a film about Gibson.

Buxton, Gibson’s closest friend in tennis, was not a fan of the likeness of Gibson, but said the important thing was that people were remembering and celebrating Gibson.

Also attending was a group of 28 students of One Love, an organization dedicated to restoring the home of a doctor who was one of Gibson’s prime mentors in Wilmington. It was a bundle of 2017 letters from the girls that prompted Adams to push the U.S.T.A. board to approve a statue for which she and King had lobbied for years.

“What she showed me is that no matter what your gender or the color of your skin, you can do whatever you want,” Kayla Edwards, 14, of Wilmington said, “even if they tell you, you can’t.” — SALLY H. JACOBS

Meanwhile, in Majorca, Andy Murray prevails.

On an island far from this long one, Andy Murray notched his first singles win in a year at the Rafa Nadal Open, an ATP Challenger event in Majorca.

The competition was considerably below U.S. Open standards: Murray defeated the unranked 17-year-old Imran Sibille of France, 6-0, 6-1, in 42 minutes. Sibille has $150 in career prize money; Murray, a three-time Grand Slam champion, has more than $62 million.

Seeking more match play but not yet feeling ready for best-of-five-sets competition, Murray decided to go down to the Challenger level after losing in the first round of ATP events in Cincinnati and Winston-Salem, N.C., this month.

Murray’s next match will be tougher, against 116th-ranked Norbert Gombos, who lost in qualifying at the U.S. Open last week.

Janko Tipsarevic plays his final match at a major.

Janko Tipsarevic, who announced before the U.S. Open that he will end his career at the end of the season, lost to the American Denis Kudla, 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (5), 6-1. Tipsarevic, 35, was a U.S. Open quarterfinalist, in 2011 and 2012. He reached a career-high ranking of No. 8 in 2012.

“It has been a great 16 years,” Tipsarevic wrote on Instagram last week. “After a lot of soul searching and thinking what is important to me in this stage of my life and what does make me happy, I have decided to retire from professional tennis.”

Tipsarevic plans to end his career at the Davis Cup event in November in Madrid. He was on the Serbian team that won the Cup in 2010. Tipsarevic owns an academy that bears his name in Belgrade.

Kudla will next face another Serb, the 27th-seeded Dusan Lajovic. If he wins that match, he could face a third Serb: the top-seeded Novak Djokovic. If he wins that, the fourth round offers a possibility of a fourth consecutive Serbian showdown, if either Miomir Kecmanovic or Laslo Djere advance to that stage.

Ashleigh Barty starts slow but rallies.

The first match on Ashe Stadium produced the first major upset scare: Second-seeded Ashleigh Barty recovered from losing the first set to win, 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, against 80th-ranked Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan.

Diyas won the first set in just 28 minutes, hitting one winner but benefiting from Barty spraying 19 unforced errors against just five winners.

Barty had a positive winners-to-unforced-errors differential in the next two sets. She will next face the winner of the match between Lauren Davis and Johanna Larsson.

Barty won the French Open and Miami Open this year, which helped vault her into the top 10 and then the No. 1 ranking. She rose to No. 1 in June after winning her third title, in Birmingham, England. As the top seed at Wimbledon, she lost in the fourth round to Alison Riske of Pittsburgh. She has since been replaced at No. 1 by Naomi Osaka.

Jenson Brooks wins his first U.S. Open match.

Jenson Brooksby became the youngest winner so far on Day 1, beating the Czech veteran Tomas Berdych, 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Brooksby, who is from Sacramento, won a wild card into the U.S. Open last year by winning the junior nationals tournament in Kalamazoo, Mich. He then lost in the first round to the eventual quarterfinalist John Millman. Brooksby, 18, opted against competing in Kalamazoo again this year, instead playing the Open qualifying tournament.

The choice paid off: Brooksby qualified with wins over Kaichi Uchida, Yuichi Sugita and Spain’s Pedro Martínez.

Brooksby is not the youngest man playing Monday. Zachary Svajda, 16, who won Kalamazoo this year to get a wild card, is facing 37-year-old Paolo Lorenzi.