Kim Birrell Breaks US Open Hoodoo with First-Round Victory

Kim Birrell wakes up in New York with a match point to save and a hoodoo to break. By lunchtime, she has both.

The Queenslander, who had never won a main-draw match at the US Open in three previous attempts, finally punched through the first-round barrier at Flushing Meadows, grinding past Croatian Petra Marcinko 3-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 in a match stretched awkwardly across two days and a 14-hour rain delay.

From sleepless night to statement win

When play stopped on Sunday night, Birrell’s campaign hung by a thread. She had already stared down a match point in the 12th game of the second set, was a set down and trailed by a mini-break in the tiebreak. The rain came, the players left, and Birrell was left alone with her thoughts and a scoreline that offered little comfort.

She returned to court 7 on Monday a different force.

The pressure that had been building on Marcinko finally cracked. Birrell clawed back the deficit in the breaker, snatched the second set and then tightened the screws in the decider, using her consistency and resolve to wear down the 18-year-old Croat. The 6-3 third set was less about fireworks than about endurance and nerve.

For Birrell, 28, this was more than just a number in the win column. She had lost all three of her previous first-round encounters at the US Open in 2023, 2024 and 2025. This time, she refused to let the tournament spit her out early again.

The victory also carried a personal twist. Marcinko had beaten her in straight sets on the grass of Eastbourne just two months ago, part of a growing rivalry that began in Texas in February, when Birrell won their first meeting despite losing the opening set 6-0. This time, the Australian flipped the script again, turning a perilous position into one of the most satisfying wins of her career.

She now joins rising compatriot Taylah Preston as the second Australian woman into the second round, and she does so with momentum and a sizeable reward: a guaranteed $US190,000 ($265,000) and a crack at world No.19 Ekaterina Alexandrova on Wednesday (Thursday AEST). Beat the Russian, and this week in New York suddenly looks very different.

Vukic falls short as Sakamoto closes the door

While Birrell walked off a winner, Aleksandar Vukic could not complete his own rain-interrupted escape act.

Resuming against Rei Sakamoto with the Japanese player already up a break deep in the fifth set, Vukic needed an early spark. He never got it. Sakamoto stepped back on court, held his nerve and rattled through six straight points on serve without dropping one, locking in a draining 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory.

For Vukic, it was a brutal way to bow out: a long, seesawing contest decided in a brief, clinical burst after the delay.

Australian hopes still stacked on day two

The Australian presence at Flushing Meadows is far from spent.

• Alexei Popyrin faces a name that needs no introduction: former US Open semifinalist Grigor Dimitrov, forced into qualifying this year after an injury layoff but still one of the most dangerous floaters in the draw.
• Rinky Hijikata walks into a heavyweight test of his own against third seed Felix Auger-Aliassime.
• James Duckworth meets Italian Matteo Arnaldi, a rising threat on hard courts, while Maya Joint steps into a daunting assignment against the much-fancied Liudmila Samsonova.
• And looming over all of it is the start of Alex de Minaur’s campaign. The world No.7 opens his title quest on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) against Italian qualifier Andrea Guerrieri, carrying the weight of Australian expectation into the final major of the year.

For now, though, the Australian story in New York belongs to Kim Birrell — a restless night, a saved match point, and finally, a place in the second round she has chased for years.