NEW YORK, August 29. /TASS/. Russia’s Lyudmila Samsonova has cleared the opening round of the 2023 US Open tennis tournament, which kicked off in New York on Monday.

Seeded-14th Samsonova defeated US tennis player Claire Liu with straight sets win of 7-6 (7-3); 6-3 and the Russian tennis player is now set to face in the next round unseeded Tamara Korpatsch of Germany.

The 24-year-old Russian is the winner of four Women Tennis Association (WTA) tournaments. Playing at the Grand Slam tournaments she never cleared the quarterfinals round. In 2021, she was the winner of the Billie Jean King Cup playing for the Russian national team.

The 2023 US Open is being held on outdoor hard courts at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York between August 28 and September 10. The tournament has $65 mln in prize money up for grabs. Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and Poland’s Iga Swiatek are the defending champions at the 2023 US Open in the men’s and women's singles, respectively.

Tennis players from Russia and Belarus are participating in the tournament under a neutral status due to the current sanctions regime.

Russian players’ neutral status at tennis tournaments

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.

Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) ruled on March 1, 2022 to suspend the membership of the Russian and Belarusian national tennis federations while also cancelling all previously scheduled tennis tournaments in the two countries.

On March 14, 2022, the ITF also confirmed its prohibition on the Russian and Belarusian national tennis teams from taking part in the 2022 Davis Cup and 2022 Billie Jean King Cup.

However, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) allowed tennis players from Russia and Belarus to continue participating in WTA and ATP tournaments, but only under a neutral status.