Gone, for the most part, were the uncertainties of approach and execution that had brought just two wins from her six matches since that heady September night in New York. In their stead were assurance, composure, intelligence. The self-assurance of a grand slam champion who, for the first 17 minutes, looked every inch the part as she conceded just four points. The composure, on her main draw debut at the Australian Open, to absorb a gritty comeback from a rival who, for all Raducanu’s early excellence, initially looked thoroughly out of sorts. And the intelligence, down the home straight, to make the tactical adjustments required to see out victory.

“I played a great first set,” said Raducanu after prevailing 6-0, 2-6, 6-1 in the battle of current and former US Open champions. “I executed my game plan pretty well and was making very few unforced errors.

“But of course, because Sloane is a great champion, she was fighting back in the second set. Her defensive skills were pretty inspiring, actually, for me to try and replicate myself later on. So we got into some long rallies. She turned it around.  

“Then, in the third set, I’m just glad I could regroup and make less errors again and play some good tennis.” 

It was a characteristically insightful appraisal from the 19-year-old. A hard-fought contest that featured some fine tennis from both women, not to mention a significant number of unforced errors – 42 for Stephens, 30 by Raducanu – was played out in three acts.  

For a set, Raducanu was irresistible, her bold shot-making and ability to stretch a lead redolent of the fearless tennis she produced at Flushing Meadows. It will not have escaped the locker room’s notice that the best performances of Raducanu’s fledgling career have come at the game’s marquee events: Wimbledon, where she reached the third round on her debut as a wildcard; Flushing Meadows, where she came through qualifying to win the title without dropping a set; and now, facing a grand slam champion for the first time, Melbourne Park. 

Yet there was always a sense that Stephens, a player of redoubtable pedigree who nonetheless remains prone to inexplicable dips in form and consistency, had more to give. So it proved, as the second act became a showcase for Raducanu’s defensive skills, another step on a learning curve that she seems to be travelling in reverse.

“When Sloane was fighting back in the second set, I definitely accepted that,” said Raducanu, who will face Danka Kovinic of Montenegro in round two. “I was almost expecting it, because she is a champion and you don’t just become one by rolling over.”

A double fault in the opening game of the second set offered a first hint of fallibility on Raducanu’s part. Stephens gleefully accepted the proffered gift. But having gained a belated foothold in the match, she relinquished almost immediately as Raducanu broke back to level at 2-2. The challenge for the American, who recognised the need to bring her power to bear against her young rival but was too out of touch to do so consistently, lay in balancing the risk-reward ratio. She eventually alighted on the solution of mixing venom with guile, slicing her backhand short and wide to pull Raducanu away from the middle of the court before drilling the ball into the space vacated by her opponent. 

“I think it was her game plan to come out and be super aggressive, and she did that well,” said Stephens, who married the American footballer Jozy Altidore in the off-season and only decided to make the trip to Melbourne once it became clear she would not have to spend time in quarantine.

“Obviously, when you’re playing someone that’s playing like that, they always tend to settle a bit. So I just had to make sure I didn’t get too out of control, so I could get some games and then obviously get the second. I just tried to stay steady.”

The tone of the decider was set with Raducanu serving at 40-30 in the opening game. A Stephens approach shot unexpectedly crept over the net but the teenager, momentarily startled, managed to manufacture a reply before drilling a backhand pass for a winner. With fist clenched, she turned to her box, where her new coach Torben Beltz looked on approvingly. She was on her way.

Now Raducanu, who had never previously played a deciding set at a slam, displayed an ability to think on her feet that will serve her well as she charts a course through her maiden season on the tour. She peppered the Stephens backhand, limiting the American’s opportunities to unload off her more powerful forehand. She drew Stephens forward with short, angled slices of her own, forcing the 28-year-old to play more points at the net, where she rarely looked at ease. It was more than Stephens could deal with.

“I think 2022 is all about learning for me,” reflected Raducanu. “Being in those situations of, you know, winning a set and then having to fight in a decider is definitely just all just accumulating into a bank of experience that I can tap into later on down the line.”

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Garbiñe Muguruza faced just such an opponent in Victoria Azarenka, and in winning a contest of brutal power and intensity she might finally have shattered whatever glass ceiling it is that has previously prevented her from doing herself justice at the US Open.

The Spaniard, who has won Roland Garros and Wimbledon and reached the Australian Open final, has never previously been beyond the fourth round at Flushing Meadows, but a 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 victory over Azarenka, a fellow former No 1 and a player with three finals in New York to her name, could just change that.

Muguruza’s level fluctuated – her serve, unplayable at times in the first set, went off the boil dramatically in the second – but her commitment to the task never wavered as she lifted her game at the key moments, most notably at the business end of the first and third sets, to beat Azarenka at her own game.

“I started very well, got that first set,” said Muguruza, who had never previously won a match in the Arthur Ashe Stadium. “I feel like in the second set I lost my momentum a little bit. She also came up with great shots. In the third set I managed just to be there again and go for the match a little bit. When you face these types of opponents you cannot wait, you have to go to get the win. I felt I did it. I’m happy that it’s actually my first Arthur Ashe win, after almost 10 years. It’s kind of funny.”

Muguruza’s amusement is unlikely to be shared by her opponent. Having fought back brilliantly to stem a tide of irresistible shot-making from Muguruza towards the end of the first set, Azarenka cut an increasingly frustrated figure in the decider, taking out her frustration on her racket after driving a backhand wide to drop serve in an epic sixth game that swung back and forth over multiple deuces. Azarenka arrived in New York with points to defend after reaching last year’s final, where she was beaten by Naomi Osaka, and her ranking is likely to plummet to outside the top 30 from her current position of 19th. But she can take consolation from a superb contribution to a match that ranks among the best of the tournament so far. 

As for Muguruza, there is a momentum gathering around the Spaniard that bodes well for her prospects of finally making a deep run in New York. She has survived three tough matches to make the second week, clinching two tiebreaks to see off Donna Vekic and recording a first win in four attempts over Germany’s Andrea Petkovic prior to facing Azarenka, and seems more at peace with the perpetual hubbub of the city than in previous years.

“Negativity was more than positivity in the previous years,” said Muguruza, reflecting on a tournament that ought to be a happy hunting ground, given her preference for hard courts. “This year, I don’t know, I just prepared well and said, ‘Hey, at some point it’s going to change, this might be the year. I feel also, having gone through those couple of first tough matches gave me the feeling that, ‘Hey, I can do well here.’ I think going through the first rounds always gives you that confidence. In the previous years, I didn’t manage to go through those opening rounds.”

Muguruza next faces Barbora Krejcikova, the eighth seed and French Open champion, who has yet to drop a set on her maiden appearance in the main draw of the singles. The pair met recently in Cincinnati, where the Czech avenged a defeat in the Dubai final five months ago, but in this mood Muguruza need fear no one.

After an early exchange of breaks, Muguruza and Azarenka played first-strike tennis of the highest order, finding corners and painting lines as they drilled their groundstrokes with relentless power and precision, punishing the slightest sign of hesitation or lapse in quality with dead-eyed ruthlessness. It was nip and tuck until the eight game, when Muguruza suddenly hit a purple patch. Having held to love with one of five first-set aces, Muguruza took control of Azarenka’s next service game with a sequence of returns that stretched Azarenka’s powers of retrieval beyond breaking point.

A serving masterclass followed, Muguruza showcasing her variety with stinging deliveries wide, down the centre and into the body to bring up three set points. An ace sealed the set and, by the time she slammed two consecutive backhand winners to leave Azarenka comtemplating a 0-30 deficit in the opening game of the second set, Muguruza had won 14 out of the previous 15 points.

Without warning, however, the wheels came off. Azarenka fought her way out of trouble to hold, and in the next game a foot fault at 0-15 proved costly for Muguruza, the Belarusian pouncing on a short second serve to drill a crosscourt backhand return for a winner. A double fault followed from Muguruza, and when she landed herself in further trouble two games later with another foot fault, falling a double break behind, not even a faltering attempt to serve out the set at 5-1 could stall Azarenka for long.

If the second set was a more uneven affair than the first, the decider marked a return to the ferocious, near-flawless power play of the initial exchanges. Both players staved off early break points, but when Muguruza carried the momentum from an emphatic hold into the sixth game, fighting her way to a break after several deuces, there was to be no way back for Azarenka. Serving to stay in the match at 2-5, the Belarusian double-faulted to bring an electrifying contest to an anticlimactic conclusion.

Elsewhere, Simona Halep moved into the second week with a three-set victory over French Open quarter-finalist Elena Rybakina. Halep lost the opening three games of a seesaw opening set, fighting back from 3-5 down and saving four set points before finally converting her seventh set point to win a 20-point tiebreak. Rybakina, the 19th seed, hit back to level the match and led by a break in the decider before Halep recovered to see out a 7-6 (11-9), 4-6, 6-3 victory.

“It’s nice to be back in the second week of the US Open after five years,” said Halep, whose best result at Flushing Meadows came in 2015, when she reached the semi-finals. “[In] this match, every point was important, and I knew that I have to fight for every single point, because she never gives up. She showed that she’s very strong mentally, very stable emotionally.”

Halep will play Elina Svitolina in the last 16 after the Ukrainian fifth seed extended her winning streak to eight matches with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Daria Kasatkina of Russia. “I think it was a very solid performance mentally and physically, with my tennis as well,” said Svitolina, the champion in Chicago last week. “I was very composed.”

Angelique Kerber continued her recent resurgence, moving into the last 16 with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-3 win over fellow former champion Sloane Stephens. The former world No 1 could face the defending champion Naomi Osaka in the next round.

“Before you walk on court, you know of course that the last few matches you lost,” said Kerber after what was only her second win in seven meetings with Stephens. “For me it was really important to have the mentality that I really want to win the match, and going there to fight for every ball. I think that was for me the key to turn around the match, especially after the first set.”

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Three days before the start of the US Open, it was announced that spectators over the age of 12 would be required to prove they have had at least one coronavirus jab. There is no such requirement for players, however, among whom vaccine hesitancy is high.

Azarenka, who kept her bid to reach a fourth US Open final on track with a 6-3, 7-6 (7-1) victory over Italy’s Jasmine Paolini, said the disparity between the freedom allowed to competitors and the restrictions imposed on the public was strange.

“I want to start this conversation between our players, because to me it’s a bit bizarre that fans have to be vaccinated and players are not,” said the former world No 1, whose win against Paolini set up a mouth-watering third-round showdown with former French Open and Wimbledon champion Garbiñe Muguruza.

“In my opinion, it’s inevitable that it will be mandated at some point, like other leagues are doing. I don’t see the point of stalling it, really, because I think we all want to be safe, we all want to continue doing our jobs, and I know there is a lot of discussions about it.”

Azarenka added that while she respected the right to freedom of choice, personal decisions should be based on scientific fact. “I respect everybody’s opinion, as long as it’s not conspiracy theory. You know, if you actually have decent knowledge, and looked into research and have your facts and stats and research, that’s a different conversation. But I feel that that part of [the] conversation, that you need to be knowledgeable [about] what you’re saying, is missing in a lot of players. I hope that, as an association, we make the best decision for our business, for our health, for the tournaments, for the public.”

Meanwhile, the fallout from Andy Murray’s criticism of Stefanos Tsitsipas’s penchant for extended bathroom breaks continued. Tsitsipas incurred Murray’s wrath after leaving the court for eight minutes between the fourth and fifth sets of their epic opening-round match on Monday. Murray, who said the delay affected him physically and that he “lost respect” for the Greek, wryly observed on Twitter the following morning: “It takes Stefanos Tsitsipas twice as long to go to the bathroom as it takes Jeff Bezos to fly into space.”

Stephens, who retweeted Murray’s quip, said she “thought it was hilarious”. Asked about the issue of lengthy mid-match breaks following her emphatic 6-4, 6-2 win over fellow American Coco Gauff, the former champion backed the Scot’s stance.

“I can’t speak for what happened in that match, but I do know on the girl’s side, there still is a lot of that,” said Stephens, who could face fellow former winner Angelique Kerber in the next round if the German wins her rain-delayed match against Anhelina Kalinina. “It’s gamesmanship. I think there definitely needs to be a rule or changes. They make a lot of rule changes for smaller things, like they took one minute off the warmup. If someone goes to the bathroom for nine minutes, no one says anything. Six, eight minutes is a long time to leave a match. That changes the whole momentum of a match. If you’re changing your clothes, what are you changing? What are you doing in there?” 

To much hilarity, Stephens then continued in response to a male journalist: “I think there was a rule a couple of years ago where girls could only … it was like a three-minute rule or something in the bathroom. If you ever changed out of a wet sports bra, which I don’t think you have, you would know how difficult that is. But that is maybe like a five-minute. When you get into six, seven, eight, nine minutes, OK, what are you doing in there? Do you need help? I can come help you. Like, what’s happening? I think that’s more where the issues are, because it just becomes pure gamesmanship.”

Tsitsipas came under scrutiny again during his 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (4-7), 6-0 win over Adrian Mannarino in the night session, boos resounding around Arthur Ashe Stadium after he once again left the court for eight minutes at the end of the third set. Mannarino, who asked for balls with which to hit serves during the delay, did not win another game. “The rules are there to be followed, no?” said Tsitsipas afterwards. “If I break a rule, sure, I’m guilty. I agree, I’m not doing something right. If I’m staying within the guidelines, then what’s the issue?”

An altogether more rapid leak occurred on Louis Armstrong Stadium, where the match between Diego Schwartzman and former finalist Kevin Anderson was twice suspended as teeming rain was blown through gaps in the roof. The storm, caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida, eventually saw the match moved to Ashe, where Schwartzman, the 11th seed, completed a 7-6 (7-4), 6-3, 6-4 victory.

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It was not a match-up either player wanted. As Stephens put it, “to play each other, again, someone has to win it, someone has to lose, it’s just sucky.” Much has changed for the two women since the 2017 final, not least their respective rankings. Once staples of the top 10, both now find themselves outside the world’s top 40 and battling to rekindle past glories.

When Stephens took the opening set by the same 6-3 scoreline as their final-day showdown four summers ago, history did indeed look set to repeat itself. Keys, though, had other ideas. Dominating on her first serve, behind which she won 100% of the points, the 26-year-old swept through the second set, commanding the baseline exchanges with her booming forehand as she smoked 11 winners.

Such boldness served Keys well in the decider, where she pulled off a stunning angled volley at 15-40 in the ninth game en route to a courageous hold. A late exchange of breaks set the scene for a tense finale, and when Stephens dropped three consecutive points to trail 5-3 in the tiebreak, the match looked to be on Keys’ racket. But Stephens held her nerve brilliantly, refusing to waver when Keys denied her a match point with another colossal forehand winner. She sealed the match at the third time of asking, greeting victory in muted fashion as a Keys backhand flew narrowly wide.

“I thought the level was really good,” said Stephens, the world No 66, who will play Coco Gauff next after the American teenager defeated Poland’s Magda Linette 5-7, 6-3, 6-4. “We are both looking to start winning some matches and get back to where we were. It’s just unfortunate we had to play each other here, because I felt like we were both on the upswing a little bit.

“I feel like once we kind of connect our games and like things kind of fall back into place we’ll be where we want to be. But obviously that gets halted when you play each other in the first round of the tournament, so that kind of sucks. I still think both of us are headed in the right direction, which is good.”

On an opening day that offered an abundance of potential upsets in the women’s draw, Garbiñe Muguruza came through a searching examination against Donna Vekic, edging home 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-5). Muguruza, the ninth seed, recovered from 4-2 down in the first set and survived a determined fightback from the 57th-ranked Croatian in the second after leading 5-3.

“A very good win,” reflected the former French Open and Wimbledon champion, who has yet to progress beyond the last 16 in New York. “It’s a slam that, historically, it’s not my strongest … I feel like I have always came super prepared and, for whatever reason, my game didn’t click. But I don’t think about that now. Every year I come, I’m like, ‘You know what? That doesn’t matter. It’s a new year. Nobody remembers, nobody cares what happened in the past.’ I just have to go through the first rounds, which I didn’t manage to do before, and then get the confidence in playing on these courts.”

Similarly relieved to make it through was Simona Halep. Handed a brutal opener against Camila Giorgi, who recently claimed the biggest title of her career at the Canadian Open, Halep showcased a much-improved serve as she shrugged off a late fightback by the Italian. Halep, who fired down six aces and won 83% of points behind her first serve, missed two match points at 6-5 but held out to win 6-4, 7-6 (7-3).

“I struggled a little bit in the end to finish the match, but I’m happy that actually I have been strong enough in the end, in the second set, to finish the match,” said Halep, the 12th seed, who missed Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the Olympics with a calf injury. “I served well also the previous tournaments, so I feel a little bit stronger there. I worked a lot in the break, when I couldn’t actually move that much because of the leg. So I did practise a lot of serves.”

Naomi Osaka, the third seed and defending champion, safely negotiated her opener against Marie Bouzkova, the 87th-ranked Czech, winning 6-4, 6-1. It was a tougher start for second seed Aryna Sabalenka, however, the Belarusian coming through in three sets against Serbia’s Nina Stojanovic, 6-4, 6-7 (4-7), 6-0.

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