Kim Birrell Achieves First US Open Main-Draw Victory
Kim Birrell stared down a match point, a sleepless night and a stubborn opponent. She walked away with her first-ever US Open main-draw victory.
The 28-year-old Queenslander finally cracked the first-round barrier at Flushing Meadows, grinding past Croatian Petra Marcinko 3-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 in a rain-splintered contest that stretched over two days and demanded every scrap of resolve she had.
From rain delay to revival
On Sunday night, Birrell looked in serious trouble. She had dropped the opening set, was locked in a tense second, and then faced match point in the 12th game. She escaped, but the storm clouds rolled in. Literally.
Play was halted, and the match was pushed into an overnight holding pattern. Fourteen hours of waiting. Fourteen hours to replay that match point in her head. When she returned to Court 7 on Monday (Tuesday AEST), she was still down a mini-break in the second-set tiebreak.
That’s when the switch flipped.
Birrell clawed her way back into the breaker, wrestled control, and snatched the second set 7-4. The momentum, which had been firmly in Marcinko’s grip, suddenly belonged to the Australian.
The decider became a test of nerve and legs. Birrell, who had lost in straight sets to Marcinko on the grass of Eastbourne just two months ago, refused to let the Croatian dictate. She absorbed the pace, extended rallies, and slowly wore her opponent down, closing out the third set 6-3 to seal what ranks among the most satisfying wins of her career.
History, finally rewritten
This was Birrell’s fourth main-draw appearance in New York. The previous three – in 2023, 2024 and 2025 – all ended in first-round exits. That unwanted streak is now gone.
There was history between the pair, too. Birrell and Marcinko had split their two earlier meetings this season: a comeback win for Birrell in Texas after dropping the opening set 6-0, then that chastening straight-sets defeat at Eastbourne. This time, with the stakes higher and the stage grander, Birrell found a way to flip the script again.
Her reward is a second-round clash with Russian world No.19 Ekaterina Alexandrova and a guaranteed $US190,000 ($265,000) payday – with the chance to push that figure higher if she can back it up on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).
She also becomes the second Australian woman into the second round, following rising talent Taylah Preston, who advanced earlier.
Mixed fortunes for the Aussies
While Birrell surged, Aleksandar Vukic could not quite drag himself over the line in his own weather-hit marathon against Rei Sakamoto.
Their match, like Birrell’s, resumed after a delay with the tension already sky-high. Sakamoto returned to court holding a break deep in the deciding set and slammed the door shut with ruthless efficiency. The Japanese player rattled through six straight points on serve, never blinking, to complete a 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory and end Vukic’s campaign.
The Australian presence, though, is far from finished in New York.
Four more players step into the fray on day two: Alexei Popyrin, Rinky Hijikata, James Duckworth and Maya Joint all chasing second-round spots of their own.
Popyrin faces a name with serious pedigree in Grigor Dimitrov, a former US Open semifinalist who has had to come through qualifying this year after an injury lay-off. Hijikata draws a heavyweight in third seed Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Duckworth meets Italian Matteo Arnaldi, while Joint is thrown straight into the path of the much-fancied Liudmila Samsonova.
And then there is Alex de Minaur. The world No.7 opens his title bid on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) against Italian qualifier Andrea Guerrieri, carrying the weight of expectation as the leading Australian hope.
For now, though, the story belongs to Kim Birrell – the player who walked back onto court staring at defeat and walked off it having finally carved her name into the US Open second round.
