Samantha Stosur battled to her first win at Flushing Meadows in five years on Monday to move unconvincingly into the second round of the US Open.

Australia’s world No.15 did her best to commit tennis suicide, spraying a staggering 58 unforced errors, before finally squeezing past Japanese veteran Ai Sugiyama 6-4 4-6 6-4 in two hours and 14 minutes.

Stosur seriously dodged a bullet, avoiding defeat largely because her ageing opponent – at 34, the second-oldest woman in the draw – lost her nerve and blew a service-break advantage late in the deciding set.

Despite the fast hardcourt surface supposedly suiting her game, the victory was only Stosur’s second in seven matches in New York and snapped a run of four successive first-round exits since 2004.

Stosur’s aggressive style is such that she often lives and dies by the sword and such was the case on Monday as she barely managed to stay alive.

Ultimately, she triumphed because of her courage under fire, the 25-year-old hammering 44 winners to almost offset her ridiculous error count.

Stosur will be hoping her indifferent performance was merely due to nerves and that she can quickly rediscover the blistering form that made her one of the tour’s hottest players heading into the last grand slam event of the year.

Next up for the 15th seed is American wildcard Vania King on Thursday (AEST).

Stosur made a dreadful start on Monday, dropping her opening service game with four sloppy unforced errors, to set the tone for an ugly match featuring 13 breaks in 30 games.

She immediately broke back to love but continued flaying balls in every direction before chopping a limp backhand into the net to gift Sugiyama a second break for a 3-2 lead.

As Stosur’s mistakes mounted, Sugiyama found herself up 4-2 with another break despite having struck just two winners.

Staring at another two break points at 15-40 down the very next game, Stosur was barely hanging on.

But the Queenslander gamely recovered to hold serve to trail 4-3 before the tide appeared to turn her way.

She rifled a forehand return winner down the line to get back on level terms and then snatched the set after 41 minutes with another break as Stosur’s back-court power began to take its toll on Sugiyama.

After reeling off four straight games, Stosur appeared in control.

She was anything but.

The second set followed a similar pattern, with Stosur mixing wild, at times inexplicable, errors with a sprinkling of winners to keep pace with her opponent.

The 15th seed again rallied from 4-2 down to level at 4-4, but this time was unable to close out the set and the match.

She was broken to love in the ninth game and handed the set to Sugiyama with yet another backhand blunder.

Stosur charged to a 3-1 lead in the third set, only to drop three games straight, to be staring defeat in the face.

But the French Open finalist refused to surrender and pulled her act together in the nick of time to pull the match out of the fire with two late service breaks.

© AAP 2012

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