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FLUSHING MEADOWS, New York – Rebecca Marino has great memories at the US Open. This week, she was trying to create another one.

And she did. The 34-year-old won a trio of three setters – all of them following the same pattern of winning the first set, dropping the second and prevailing in the third, to qualify for the main draw.

It was only later that she found out she would be playing a compatriot in the first round – friend and Billie Jean King Cup teammate in Leylah Fernandez. It’s a rare-enough occurrence at the Grand Slam that it’s notable.

But right after the final-round victory, a 6-3, 2-6, 6-1 win over 21-year-old Czech Dominika Salkova, Marino was justifiably proud of an effort that could well have ended with a first-round defeat.

“Honestly, I think my resiliency in all of the matches really came through, but particularly that first match. I think saving those match points, being down 2-5. That enabled me in the second and third round – even being down, losing a set, not feeling my best – knowing that even in those moments I can bounce back,” Marino told Open Court.

Marino said she also realized – later than most of the women on the tour, who use it liberally – that it wasn’t a bad thing to take a bathroom break to regroup.

It worked well against Salkova.

“I was super proud of that match, and it helped me with every match after that,” she said.

Building some momentum

Marino said she felt like she was playing well, the level was there, but was just looking for it all to click into place.

“With a big game, big forehand and a big serve, that’s usually how it is,” she said. “I have good memories of the US Open, so I was just trying to channel that. Kind of like I was trying to channel my good memories in Montreal, too. I think it worked.”

The first match, against a quick Thai player named Lanlana Taraudee, started to head in the wrong direction after Taraudee took a medical timeout.

But suddenly, down and almost out, Marino began to fight and just laid it all out there, win or lose. By the end, she’d found her serve and finished it off with two aces, an unreturned serve and a great second serve for the win.

The second-round match was played in completely different conditions – cool and windy, and after a day of rain that pushed it back.

Marino overpowered Japan’s Mai Hontama – at first. Then had a little dip in the second set. Then she got right back to business in the decider.

Salkova, whose career high of No. 129 came a month ago and who is currently ranked No. 162, had most of her junior success on clay.

She was looking to make her Grand Slam main-draw debut in her sixth major, having reached the final round in her first attempt in Australia in early 2024, but not since.

A solid player, but one Marino’s weapons should overcome. But again, a dip in the second set. The reset break worked wonders.

With a large crew of Tennis Canada folks on hand to support – we love the fact that they’re all women – she got over the finish line.

She didn’t know until later that she’d have to face Fernandez, who is 12 years younger and whom she, in a way, took under her wing early in Fernandez’s career.

It’ll make for a bit of an awkward one. But there’s so much at stake for both.

(Marino was 19 and Venus Williams was 30 when they met in the second round of the US Open in 2010, after Marino got through the qualifying. They got an Arthur Ashe Stadium slot. And Marino acquitted herself beautifully in a close, two-set loss.

Here’s the flashback.