Russian Daniil Medvedev swept past French Richard Gasquet 6-4, 6-3, 6-1 in the 200th match win of his career in the U.S. Open men's singles first round on Tuesday.

The 25-year-old second seed lost to Dominic Thiem last year in the semifinal and is in good standing for the championship title, especially after Thiem announced quitting the 2021 season due to a wrist injury.

However, Medvedev admitted that he struggled in the third set of the match.

"It was very humid today," said Medvedev in the post-match interview.

"The score might seem easy, but we played for two hours. The first two sets were high-intensity. I was actually not that good physically also in the third [set], but it's better when you're two sets up than two sets down when you struggle."

He will next play Germany's Dominik Koepfer, from whom he took a win in the fourth round of this tournament in 2020.

On the women's side, two-time champion Naomi Osaka kicked off her title defense with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Czech Marie Bouzkova.

"Last year the automated crowd noise was kind of the same all the time. But here, people are reacting in real-time, so it was cool," she said.

On Monday, the defending champion said she had put down the undue pressure that caused her early exit in the French Open this year.

Top seeds Novak Djokovic and Ashleigh Barty play their first-round matches on Tuesday.

(With input from Reuters)