Oh, baby.
After being routed in the Olympic gold-medal match and experiencing severe stomach pain, Maria Sharapova went for ultrasounds and tests, indicating yesterday she thought she may have been pregnant.
Sharapova said she had “a stomach bug’’ for several days before the recent Montreal tournament and withdrew, but feared it was more serious.
“Yeah, just because of the pain I was having,” Sharapova said after winning her first-round U.S. Open match. “It was really weird. They told me I was not, not pregnant. I’m like, then can I get my money back?’’
Sharapova later withdrew from the Cincinnati tournaments as well. In her first match since the Olympics, the third-seeded Sharapova cruised yesterday to a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Hungary’s Melinda Czink.
“I had some tests done, some bloodwork, some ultrasound stuff,’’ Sharapova said. “They said I probably should just rest.’’
Sharapova is engaged to Sasha Vujacic, the former Nets and Lakers guard now playing in Turkey. She denied rumors she is getting married to Vujacic in November in Istanbul.
* Kim Clijsters opened the final tournament of her career against 16-year-old American Victoria Duval playing her first tour-level match, and against a nervous foe little more than half her age, Clijsters cruised to a 6-3, 6-1 victory to win her 22nd straight U.S. Open match. She will face Laura Robson tomorrow.
* Top-seeded Victoria Azarenka needed just 50 minutes to dispatch Alexandra Panova 6-0, 6-1. … The men’s No. 1 player, Roger Federer, also won his first match, defeating American Donald Young, 6-3, 6-2, 6-4.
* Defending U.S. Open champion Samantha Stosur is feasting in Flushing again. After winning the Open last September by routing Serena Williams, the powerful Aussie struggled through a less-than-stellar 2012 season.
But yesterday, in the first match on opening day at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the seventh seed reeled off the first 19 points of the match to take a 4-0, 40-0 lead. She didn’t convert the “golden set,’’ but easily prevailed 6-1, 6-1 over Croatia’s Petra Martic in 61 minutes for her eighth straight Open win.“I wasn’t trying, the goal didn’t become to win a golden set,’’ Stosur said. “It pops in your head that would be cool, but I hit that double fault. You’re going to lose one at some point.’’ As for her love of Flushing, Stosur said, “It’s a nice pace out there, not too fast. It’s quite high-bouncing. Using the spin and the way I like to serve, I can use those things to my advantage.’
Stosur double-faulted to ruin the perfect set.
Stosur admitted the expectations at this year’s Australian Open, in her home country where she was hailed as a favorite coming off the Open conquest, got to her.
“I did freeze and it did kind of handcuff me,’’ Stosur said.
*
The Open has seen buckets of rain the past four years, but never on Day 1. A day after the USTA guaranteed a roof one day would be in place over center court, the Open was halted 90 minutes into the tournament by a 2 ½-hour rain delay.
The Southern belle of the Open ball in 2009, when she was 16, Melanie Oudin’s serving struggles continued in a 6-4, 6-0 first-round loss to Lucie Safarova, 6-4, 6-0.
“It’s hard not to think about [2009], but I have to move on from it,’’ said Oudin, who called the defeat “extremely disappointing.’’
— Additional reporting by Brian Lewis