NEW YORK, August 29. /TASS/. Russian tennis star Daniil Medvedev has cleared the opening round of the 2023 US Open tennis tournament, which kicked off in New York on Monday.

Seeded third Medvedev defeated unseeded Attila Balazs of Hungary with straight sets win of 6-1, 6-1, 6-0 and is now set to face in the next round either with Max Purcell of Australia or Christopher O’Connell also of Australia (both unseeded) depending on who wins the match.

Medvedev, 27, is currently third in the ATP Rankings List. In 2022, Medvedev was the number one ranked tennis player in the world for 16 weeks. He is the 2021 US Open Champion and has 20 ATP tournament titles under his belt. He has won five of those 20 titles this year. Also, in 2021, he won the Davis Cup for the Russian national team as well as the ATP Cup.

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 sanction regime.