Of all the players you might have picked to cause a first-day upset at the US Open, Daria Snigur was hardly the most obvious candidate – and not only because even the most assiduous tennis anorak would be hard pressed to pick the Ukrainian qualifier out of a crowd.
It would be putting it mildly to say that Snigur, ranked 124th in the world, does things her own way. Her forehand, struck flat with an extended, seemingly telescopic arm, puts one in mind of an airborne albatross. Her backhand is for the most part an ungainly scoop – except when Snigur is pulled into the corners, from where she tends to wield her racket like an oversized fly-swatter. The serve, meanwhile, in which Snigur’s feet come together quickly before the most cursory of knee bends, is delivered with an awkward, toppling motion. Unorthodox barely begins to cover it.
Make no mistake, though, the wonderfully engaging 20-year-old can play, as she demonstrated with a remarkable, emotionally charged 6-2, 0-6, 6-4 victory over seventh seed Simona Halep, who had arrived in New York as one of the title favourites following her recent victory in Toronto. It was a tenacious, composed performance from Snigur, who calmly made the most of a strangely subdued start by Halep, remained unflappable in the face of a second-set whitewash, and held her nerve down the stretch as the former world No 1 reeled off three consecutive games from 5-1 down.
Snigur’s resilience has been forged by adversity. Russian bombing forced the former junior Wimbledon champion to abandon her training base in Kyiv, the city of her birth, and she prepared for the US Open in Latvia. Last week, she participated in Tennis Plays for Peace, an exhibition event at Flushing Meadows that was supported by Iga Swiatek and Rafael Nadal, and raised $1.2m for humanitarian relief efforts in Ukraine. It has been a turbulent period in Snigur’s life and, when Halep stabbed a final backhand into the net to confirm the most improbable of outcomes, she dissolved into tears. In the stands, her father held his head in disbelief. Still overcome by emotion, Snigur formed a heart shape with her hands around a ribbon in the colours of the Ukrainian flag as she drank in the crowd’s applause.
“This is a victory for Ukraine, for all Ukrainian people, for my family, for my team,” said Snigur. “The situation is bad, of course. I try to do the best for Ukraine, I try to support my country. It’s not so easy because the war is continuing. Sometimes it’s impossible to play, but I try to do my best because I want to live in Ukraine.
“Before the war, I practised in Kyiv. But Russia bombed my base, so before the US Open I practised in Riga with my coach. But I don’t have a base where I can practise every time.”
There was another major shock in the women’s singles when Harriet Dart, the British No 2, came through in three sets against Daria Kasatkina, the Russian 10th seed. Dart, who had never previously won a match at the US Open, defied the torrid conditions on Court 12 to claim a 7-6 (10-8), 1-6, 6-3 over the French Open semi-finalist.
In the men’s singles, Stefanos Tsitsipas joined the casualty list as the Greek fourth seed tumbled to a 6-0, 6-1, 3-6 ,7-5 defeat against Daniel Galan, a Colombian qualifier ranked 94th in the world.
Tsitsipas, a finalist in Cincinnati, arrived at Flushing Meadows as one of five players capable of ending the tournament as world No 1. But as Galan stormed into a 6-0, 5-0 lead, hitting freely in the blustery conditions, Tsitsipas struggled to find his range and sprayed unforced errors – 27 in the first two sets alone. Despite a much improved showing in the third set, and a courageous attempt to cling on as he fought off eight match points, it was a start from which the 24-year-old never quite recovered.
“I was very motivated and pumped before the US Open started, because I knew I could use this tournament to get closer to the No 1 spot,” said Tsitsipas. “It would be very weird and very unusual if it didn’t cross my mind, because this is something I wanted since I was a kid, and I knew this was my chance.
“It just didn’t go as planned. Sometimes you just need to let it go, you don’t need to overthink it, you don’t need to push yourself too hard. But at the same time it’s difficult, because there’s this open opportunity right in front of you, you don’t want to mess it up, you don’t want to waste it.”