The six time US Open winning Williams kicked off her campaign with a tough match against Flushing Meadows native Ahn who despite losing in straight sets put up a fight. It took Serena 81 minutes to down Ahn 7-5 6-3 in match where she was initially trailing. In her post match conference Serena admitted of being out of rhythm at the start:

"It was just getting the rhythm in the early part of the match. First-round is always tough for me. I think Kristie, she really strikes the ball really hard. She mixes up a lot. She plays a lot of different shots. You don't really know what to expect."

Serena admitted of needing to up her game just to make sure that she would win:

"I really thought her game was really, really, really good to the point where I had to make sure. I was down a break at one point, so I was really fighting for everything."

She also spoke about her preparation for the match which included just being focused from the start till the end to minimize the chance of losing:

"I felt like I wanted to be focused from the first point to the last. I feel like I have been focused, but I've been losing matches on literally one point that could swing a match a different way. I've been playing a ton of tight matches. "

Her next opponent will be Margarita Gasparyan who defeated Puig earlier in the day but Serena didn't offer any comment on that upcoming match.

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