WHAT HAPPENED: No. 2 seed and reigning French Open champion Ashleigh Barty survived a scare to win the first match of the 2019 US Open inside Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Barty rallied after dropping the first set against Kazakhstan's Zarina Diyas, but never faced a break point across the second and third sets to win, 1-6, 6-3, 6-2.
"I probably would have preferred if it was a little bit more straightforward, but I'm happy [with] the way we were able to fight through that and find a way after a pretty awful start," Barty said after the match. "I think I just didn't give myself a chance in that first set. I think it was just nice to kind of lock down a little bit. It took some time, but kind of break her down in the end."
The reigning French Open champion was slow to get going against Diyas, who boasts a career-best ranking of world No.31, but rounded into form after dropping the first set to advance to the second round in one hour and 41 minutes.
Broken twice in the first set, when she hit 19 unforced errors to just five winners, the Aussie won nine of the last 11 games from 6-1, 3-3.
"[It was] not the ideal start, not the perfect start, but it is what it is. We were able to find a way after that to get into the match and be more patient and really just kind of lock down and wait until I got the right balls and right patterns that I wanted," Barty added.
"That was probably the biggest change in the second and third is I was able to get more of those patterns more regularly and in the end build pressure to create more opportunities to break."
As went her serve, so went the No. 2 seed in the match: Barty landed just 25 percent of her first serves in the opening set, affording the Kazakh ample opportunities to work her way into points.
"In that first set, she was able to put the ball in an awkward position for me, in a position where I couldn't attack. I was a lot of the time staying neutral and then pressing to try and wrestle the, I suppose, control of the point in my favor and made errors by doing that," Barty continued.
"Zarina is very good. She served particularly well today and she was able to get ahead of a lot of her service games. Towards the end, I served a lot better to give myself a chance to be dominant in the points."
Her service percentage improved as the match went on, and that culminated with winning over 80 percent of the points behind her first serve in both the second and third sets.
In addition, Barty hit seven of her eight aces for the match, and hit 22 winners to just 17 unforced across the two sets she won.
The comeback victory for the No. 2 seed sets up a second round meeting with American Lauren Davis, who beat Swedish qualifier Johanna Larsson later in the day on Court 11, 7-5, 6-2.
"Lauren's obviously one of the tougher challenges, playing an American in the US Open. She's been on a little bit of a heater over the past couple of months and had some good wins and coming back to some of her best stuff," Barty assessed. "It's a match that we will prepare as best as we can for tomorrow and then Wednesday we'll be ready to go."
WHAT IT MEANS: Last year, reginging Roland Garros champion and then-world No.1 Simona Halep was upset on the first day of the tournament inside the brand-new Louis Armstrong Stadium, but Barty avoided the same fate this year on a court she might've been similarly unfamiliar with.
It was Barty's first singles match inside Ashe, but she returned to New York's biggest court with fond memories, having teamed with American CoCo Vandeweghe to win the doubles title last year.
"I [have] incredible memories from my time here in New York last year, an extremely good fortnight of tennis, both in singles and doubles. I'm just glad we're off to a good start here and now we can start really getting our teeth stuck into the tournament," she said.
"It's a beautiful court to play on. It was my first singles match on it. Having played doubles on it before, I feel I'm experienced enough to walk out on bigger courts to not let that affect me. It was more just about trying to putt the ball in the right places."
MATCH POINT: At last year's US Open, Barty reached the second week of a Grand Slam for the first time, reaching the fourth round. With a first-round challenge behind her, how far can she go in 2019?
