Romanian Simona Halep escaped a threat from American wild card Danielle Collins in the opening day of the U.S. Open at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows on Monday.

Feeling the pressure of being second seed, Halep committed a number of double faults on her serve that let the NCAA champion Collins to a tie-break win in the first set 6(2)-7(7).

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The 22-year-old Halep eventually calmed down in the next two sets to easily defeat Collins, 6(2)-7(7), 6-1, 6-2 in almost two hours.

"It's really difficult to be second seeded here," Halep said after the match. "There is a lot of pressure on me. People say I should win and I can win."

Collins, a student at University of Virginia, was thrilled about playing in her first Grand Slam tournament, yet alone in front of a big crowd in New York said that there were a lot of positive things that came out of the match.

"I don't think a lot of people were expecting me to take a set off of her," said Collins.

Halep will face Slovakian Jana Cepelova in the second round.

Another top seeded player who felt the pressure in the opening rounds, sixth seed Angelique Kerber had a seesaw battle with Russian qualifier Ksenia Pervak but eventually came out on top, 6-2, 3-6, 7-5.

Seven-time Grand Slam champion and 19th seed Venus Williams also had a three-set matchup against Kimiko Date-Krumm of Japan, dropping the first set and surging on the next two sets, 2-6, 6-3, 6-3.

While others had a difficult time in their opening matches, 4th seed Agnieszka Radwanska cruised through her match against Canadian Sharon Fichman, 6-1, 6-0 to set up a second round encounter against half of the French Open women's doubles champion Peng Shuai of China who defeated fellow countrywoman Zheng Jie, 6-3, 6-3.

TagsDanielle Collins, Venus Williams, Angelique Kerber, Peng Shuai