ESPN Tennis

NEW YORK -- Dinara Safina overcame a long, mistake-filled display of tennis Tuesday to barely avoid becoming the first top-seeded woman to lose in the first round of the U.S. Open.

She defeated 167th-ranked Olivia Rogowska of Australia 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4 in a match that included 113 unforced errors, 24 double faults and 15 service breaks over 2 hours, 35 minutes.

"I didn't break any rackets and didn't get any warnings," Safina said, when asked if there were any silver linings. "That's already positive."

Former world No. 1 Ana Ivanovic wasn't as lucky, making her second straight early exit from the U.S. Open after a 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7) loss to Kateryna Bondarenko in the opening round.

Safina overcame a 3-0 deficit in the third set to avoid becoming the first top-seeded player to be ousted in the first round of any Grand Slam since Martina Hingis lost 6-4, 6-2 to Virginia Ruano Pascual at Wimbledon in 2001.

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Jim McIsaac/Getty ImagesSvetlana Kuznetsova, the 2004 U.S. Open champion, advanced to the second round.

Safina served out her final game at love, forcing errors on Rogowska's groundstrokes during one of the Russian's few sustained runs of consistency.

Safina's coach, Zeljko Krajan, was clearly having trouble watching it -- slumping, scowling and shaking his head from his lonely seat in the stands.

Safina moves on, but all the questions about her worthiness as the world's No. 1 player will almost certainly gather steam.

No. 2 Serena Williams has won the Australian Open and Wimbledon this year. Safina doesn't yet have a career Grand Slam victory, getting blown out in all three finals she's been in.

"In the French Open, I won all the matches 6-0, 6-1. Did it help? Not really," she said. "It happens like this. You pull out the match somehow."

It was the second big scare over the first two days on the U.S. Open show court. On Monday night, third-seeded Venus Williams overcame a balky knee and some shaky play for a 6-7 (5), 7-5, 6-3 win over Russia's Vera Dushevina.

That match looked like a Borg-McEnroe classic compared with Safina-Rogowska.

The first set was filled with tentative play and ended when Safina double-faulted for a 7-5 loss in the tiebreak -- the first serve barely making it halfway up the net, the second a good three inches out.

They slogged on and Rogowska, an 18-year-old with one win over a top-100 player, had chances to put a stranglehold on the match and put her name in the history books, even after she blew the 3-0 lead in the third.

Serving at 4-all and deuce in the final set, she chipped a slicing backhand deep into the corner and Safina lobbed it back, but Rogowska hit a tentative overhead and then failed to put away a pair of ensuing floaters before eventually getting passed.

That set up break point, which Safina promptly lost with a forehand hit long. Finally, Rogowska made two unforced errors in a row to give Safina the game on her fourth break point, fall behind 5-4 and set up the finish.

"I felt like I kept up with her," Rogowska said. "Like, I didn't think she blew me off the court. I'm disappointed I lost, and I didn't expect to say that after playing the No. 1 player in the world. It's a bit weird."

Safina, whose brother, Marat Safin, won the U.S. Open in 2000, accounted for 48 of the unforced errors and 11 of the double faults.

"Today, I was just saying, 'Come on, play point by point,'" Safina said. "I would not give up. I'd still give her a hard time trying to win the match."

Safina will play her second-round match against Kristina Barrois, a relative unknown who now gets her chance to tie history.

The earliest a top-seeded woman has been ousted from the U.S. Open is the second round. That was last year, when Ivanovic fell to Julie Coin of France, who moved up 55 spots in the rankings thanks in part to that victory.

Ivanovic, the 2008 French Open winner, came to Flushing Meadows this year slumping, seeded 11th, and wound up with an even worse result. She lost to Bondarenko, a Ukrainian ranked 52nd in the world.

Ivanovic had a match point, but leading 6-5 in the tiebreak, she netted an easy forehand. Bondarenko double-faulted on her first match point but won the next two points, wrapping it up when Ivanovic hit another forehand into the net -- her 50th unforced error.

"It hurts. I can tell you that," Ivanovic said. "I'm sure I will have sleepless nights."

Winners included 2004 U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, 2006 winner Maria Sharapova, past runners-up Elena Dementieva and Jelena Jankovic, No. 9 Caroline Wozniacki and No. 13 Nadia Petrova. No. 16 Virginie Razzano lost 6-4, 6-3 to Yanina Wickmayer. Shahar Peer of Israel eliminated No. 32 Agnes Szavay of Hungary 6-2, 6-2.

No. 23 Sabine Lisicki needed 2 hours, 21 minutes to beat 38th-ranked Aravane Rezai 7-6 (4), 6-7 (4), 6-1.

Jankovic, runner-up last year to Serena Williams, kicked off her 2009 U.S. Open campaign with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Roberta Vinci.

Jankovic needed third-set tiebreaks to beat Vinci in their two previous meetings but wasted little time in Louis Armstrong Stadium to advance to the second round.

The 24-year-old Serb, who committed just 11 unforced errors in outclassing her opponent, served a love game to end the 63-minute match when the Italian's service return sailed long.

Jankovic, who beat Safina to win the Cincinnati title last month, will next play either Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan or Masa Zec Peskiric of Slovenia.

Two-time major champion Kuznetsova advanced to the second round with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Julia Goerges of Germany.

Kuznetsova, the 2004 champion at Flushing Meadows and this year's French Open champion, broke open a 3-3 tie in the first set and won nine of the next 11 games for the victory.

Sharapova advanced to the second round with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria.

In her return to Flushing Meadows after missing last year with a shoulder injury, Sharapova hit 29 winners to only six for Pironkova in an easy win.

The 29th-seeded Russian is seeking her second U.S. Open and fourth Grand Slam title.

As she often does, Sharapova made as big a statement with her play as her tennis wear -- a black dress with silver straps and a matching silver headband.

Information from The Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.