Long Beach’s Vania King win first-round match at U.S. Open

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Long Beach’s Vania King took advantage of her wild card invitation into the U.S. Open. King won her first-round match when her opponent, Anastasiya Yakimova of Belarus, hurt her foot while moving for a King shot and withdrew with an injury.

King was leading 2-1 in the first set when the injury occurred. ‘I’m happy, but you never want to have a match end like that,’ King said. ‘That’s the way tennis goes sometimes. King said she had been nervous before the match. ‘I couldn’t sleep for two days thinking about this match,’ she said.

Next up for King is 15-seeded Samantha Stosur of Australia who won the most interesting match of the day, so far, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 over Japan’s Ai Sugiyama. That match took two hours, 14 minutes. So at least King should be the more rested player in her second-round chance against Stosur, who had reached the finals of the L.A. women’s tournament earlier this summer.

-- Diane Pucin