Thursday 22 August 2019 18:13, UK
Serena Williams will face Maria Sharapova in a blockbuster US Open first-round contest, where Johanna Konta faces a tough opener against Daria Kasatkina.
The pair have met in four Grand Slam finals but have never played each other at any stage of the tournament in New York, where six-time champion Williams was last champion in 2014 and Sharapova claimed her only Flushing Meadows title in 2006.
Both women have achieved the career Grand Slam, with Williams heading into the year's final Grand Slam chasing a record-equalling 24th major singles title and world No 87 Sharapova a sixth.
Williams dominates the head-to-head between the pair, winning 19 of their 22 matches, with Sharapova claiming just two wins, the last of which came in 2004, and a walkover success at Roland Garros last year when a shoulder injury ruled her out of the contest.
Their last action on the court was an Australian Open quarter-final where Williams was a comfortable 6-4 6-1 winner in Melbourne in 2016.
Elsewhere British No 1 Konta, who has never gone beyond the fourth round in New York, will play Russia's world No 42 Kasatkina and has been placed in the same quarter as world No 3 Karolina Pliskova and two-time champion Venus Williams.
Top seed and defending champion Naomi Osaka faces another Russian in Anna Blinkova,
American teenager Cori Gauff, who stormed to the fourth round at Wimbledon, has been awarded a wild card for the event and takes on Anastasia Potapova.
The 15-year-old was runner-up at the junior US Open in 2017 when she was just 13 and last year teamed up with Caty McNally to claim the girls' doubles title at Flushing Meadows.
