Naomi Osaka was forced to dig deep to overcome Anna Blinkova in a hard-fought battle to reach the US Open second round.
The 21-year-old, the top seed at Flushing Meadows and defending her title after her success here last year, showed her true champion spirit to see off the challenge of Blinkova.
The Russian, 20, had taken a 4-1 lead in the first but eventually found Osaka at her devastating best as she triumphed 6-4, 6-7, 6-2 after two and 27 minutes of play.
The Japanese has traditionally been a slow starter in Grand Slams this year and was hampered once again.
Blinkova was returning everything and capitalising on Osaka's unforced errors, breaking in the second game before taking a commanding 4-1 lead.
But back came Osaka, who had finally found some rhythm with serve and eventually broke back before winning all five games to seal the first set 6-4.
The second set started in different fashion, with neither player giving an inch on their serve, and it wasn't until the 11th game when Osaka decided to mix things up, leading 6-5 with serve.
But Blinkova fought back from a set point down to take it to a tiebreak. Osaka was visibly tense, missing the kind of shots that come from overthinking, and Blinkova kept her cool to take the tiebreak and the mtach to a decider.
Osaka used the time off court to regain her composure and having staved off two break points on her own serve, she broke Blinkova in the fourth.
From there, she never looked back and continued to use her serve to overpower Blinkova, who was beginning to tire after covering so much ground.
Osaka took full advantage and, at 5-2 up, landed the suckerpunch with an unstoppable backhand down the line to finally see off this plucky Russian.
