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Williams, who three weeks ago announced her forthcoming
retirement from tennis, will play the 7 p.m. ET (2300 GMT) match
in front of more than 23,000 hollering fans on Arthur Ashe
Stadium, where she has won six of her 23 Grand Slam titles.
While far from the form she enjoyed at the height of her
illustrious career, the 40-year-old Williams will look to
overwhelm Kovinic in their first career match-up with her
trademark mix of powerful serves and groundstrokes.
For Williams, who missed last year's U.S. Open with a leg injury
and only returned to singles action at Wimbledon in June,
emotions will be running high at the final Grand Slam of 2022.
"I definitely will be very emotional," Williams, who is also
playing in the doubles competition with older sister Venus, said
on the debut episode of Meghan Markle's 'Archetypes' podcast
that was released last week. "How am I not gonna cry?
"Maybe if I hopefully can get through a couple of matches, then
maybe I'll feel better but I think initially it's going to be
hard because every time I step out there, it's literally my last
time."
While facing Williams in the first round of a Grand Slam may
once have been one of the more daunting tasks in tennis, Kovinic
may like her chances given the recent form of her opponent.
Since announcing her pending retirement, Williams has lost every
match she has played, the first in straight sets to Belinda
Bencic at Toronto and then at Cincinnati where she was trounced
6-4 6-0 by U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu.
Kovinic, 27, has lost her last five matches but the aggressive
baseliner will take plenty of confidence into her showdown with
Williams given she has enjoyed her best career results in the
two Grand Slam events she played this year.
The Montenegrin advanced to the third round at both the
Australian Open, where she beat Britain's Raducanu in the second
round, and French Open where she delivered a valiant performance
in a losing effort against world number one Iga Swiatek.
Currently at 80th in the rankings, Kovinic reached a career-best
of No. 46 six years ago and is making her fifth main draw
appearance at a U.S. Open where she reached the second round in
2015 and 2020.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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