A heavyweight bill is on tap during day three of the US Open as a pair of rising Serbian stars and a slate of former champions see action at Flushing Meadows.
Novak Djokovic, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Jelena Jankovic and Lindsay Davenport take to the court as round one concludes and round two gets started Wednesday in the 20.6 million dollar event.
Djokovic, who is ranked third in the world, faces France's Arnaud Clement on the main Arthur Ashe Stadium court while his Serbian compatriot and former world number one Jankovic battles Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden.
Djokovic reached the final in New York last year where he lost to four-time reigning US Open champion Roger Federer.
The night session features a pair of American stars for the partisan crowd, 2003 champion Andy Roddick and Lindsay Davenport, who won in 1998.
Roddick, who says he skipped the Olympics so he could concentrate on the US hardcourt season, plays his opening match against French veteran Fabrice Santoro, who beat Roddick in their most recent meeting last year in Lyon.
Davenport plays 19-year-old Alisa Kleybanova, of Russia, in a second round match.
Kuznetsova, the 2004 champion, is first up on the Arthur Ashe court where she will square off against Romanian teenager Sorana Cirstea.
Federer rolled to a straight set win and the Williams' sisters got off to a flying start in their first round matches on Tuesday.
Playing for the first time in four years as World No. 2 on a Grand Slam stage, Federer cruised past unseeded Maximo Gonzalez 6-3, 6-0, 6-3.
Federer spent 237 weeks as the ATP's top ranked player and is gunning for Rafael Nadal's No. 1 ranking here.
A win in Flushing Meadows would salvage a disappointing season for Federer, who is still looking for his first hardcourt victory of 2008. The last time he went winless on the hardcourts was 2001.
Serena and Venus Williams could be headed for a quarter-final showdown as both scored straight set wins on Tuesday.
Seventh-seeded Venus breezed past Aussie Samantha Stosur 6-2, 6-3 while Serena dispatched Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko 6-1, 6-4 in a first round match.
Former two-time champion Serena is trying to end a long drought as her last US Open triumph was six years ago. Serena talked at length Tuesday about her 2004 tournament where she lost a controversial quarter-final to Jennifer Capriati but said her 2002 US Open win was just a blur.
"I didn't even know I won this tournament. That's how long it has been," she said.
The Williams registered four straight titles between 1999 to 2002. Venus is looking for her first US Open crown in seven years.
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