Coco Gauff wasn't going to miss it, saying she was going to change plans and attend instead of watching on TV in her hotel room.
"As I thought about it, I was, like, I have to watch," the 18-year-old American said after her straight-sets victory. "I'm excited and, you know, it's not often we watch live matches, to be honest."
Williams figured to face more comfortable conditions after a hot start under a sunny sky in Flushing Meadows. Leading 3-0 in the third set, Medvedev told the chair umpire he wanted a bag of ice so he could put it on his head.
"It was pretty hot today and humid," Medvedev said. "I see the other guys coming from five-setters in the locker room, pretty red faces. That's also fun in a way sometimes to get through these conditions. Even today, the match was maybe not that intensive and long, but, yeah, I sweated a lot and it was not easy."
Snigur was playing her first match in the main draw of a Grand Slam. The 20-year-old wore a ribbon in the blue and yellow colors of Ukraine's flag on her chest, and she put her hands around it after finishing off the victory.