Women's US Open - Na Li falls, JJ and Sam survive

Na Li was the highest seed to fall in the womens draw as the first round of the US Open was completed on Monday night. Li, the number 8 seed looked to be heading to a comfortable victory when she took the first set against Kateryna Bondarenko 6-2. However her game capitulated as Bondarenko (pictured right) grew in confidence and starting going for her shots before coming away with an impressive 2-6 6-4 6-2 victory. Several other seeds suffered scares with Jelena Jankovic having the most trouble in her 1st round match with the talented Simona Halep. Jankovic was 2 points from defeat when Halep served for the match however a scrappy Jankovic managed to battle through and take the match. Sam Stosur also looked to be heading for defeat after losing the first set to Elena Vesnina however like Jankovic, Stosur managed to pull through playing some solid tennis in the final set to win 3-6 7-6 6-1. Maria Sharapova, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Victoria Azarenka all lost sets to impressive opponents however all pulled through. Sharapova came through 4-6 6-3 6-1 against Jarmilla Groth who was superb in the first set with her fast paced attacking tennis and hitting the ball so early often catching Sharapova short on her movement. However Groth failed to maintain her form and demonstrated her main weakness in her mentality with errors at crucial points in the match. Azarenka was strolling to what looked like a comfortable victory before the all chasing Monica Niculescu grabbed the second set as she defended superbly against the Belarusian, who started to make many errors. However Azarenka came through well in the 3rd set reducing her error count, staying focussed and mixing her game up more against the tricky Niculescu. The likes of Wozniacki, V Williams, Clijsters, Zvonareva, Radwanska, Wickmayer, Bartoli and Schiavone all managed to come through in straight sets to make it into the second round of the final major.