Serena Williams made a solid start to her bid for a 23rd Grand Slam title at the Australian Open as she overcame Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic in straight sets.
The American, who has only played two competitive matches since the US Open last September, beat the unseeded teenager 6-4, 6-3 in hot conditions on Rod Laver Arena..
The No 2 seed, who sat out the final part of last season with a shoulder problem after reaching the last four at Flushing Meadows, said: "I knew I had to be strong.
"She (Bencic) is a great player, recently rated in the top 10. It really was one of the toughest first round matches I have ever played.
"Right now I have nothing to lose. Every match I play is for fun. It's self-motivating. I'm just happy to be playing."
Williams went into the tournament having lost in the second round at this month’s Auckland Classic but looked confident and composed against Bencic.
Breaking in the 10th game allowed Williams to take the first set and she broke again twice in the second to take a 4-0 lead before easing to victory.
Williams, who is bidding to break Steffi Graf’s Open-era record of 22 Grand Slam single titles, added: "I think it was pretty good. She's a really good player, so I think I was able to start out well.
"I made a few errors on some key points, but for the most part, I still was going for everything and I was able to close it out."
Williams, who is seeking a seventh title in Melbourne, now plays Lucie Safarova in a repeat of the 2015 French Open final after the Czech saved nine match points to defeat Belgian Yanina Wickmayer.
Karolina Pliskova played down her chances of the title despite kick-starting her campaign with an ominous straight-sets rout of Spain’s Sara Sorribes Tormo.
The world No 5 was in relentless form as she won 6-2, 6-0 in 62 minutes to set up a second-round clash with Russian qualifier Anna Blinkova, who ended the hopes of Romanian Monica Niculescu.
Pliskova, a US Open finalist last year, said recently the Melbourne Park surface suited her game and it was the tournament which offered her the best chance for a maiden Grand Slam title.
She said: "Actually, I feel 100 times better than I felt before the US Open so this thing, like the scariness of the second week, is already gone.
"[That] doesn't mean that I'm going to be there for sure now every Grand Slam in the second week. It __can happen that I still lose, but definitely I feel better with this pressure than before.
"I don't feel like I would be favourite on this tournament or any Grand Slam so far. I think there are still better players than me. Me, I don't want to put the pressure on myself."
Agnieszka Radwanska survived a dogfight to move into the second round as she bids to end her long wait for a maiden Grand Slam title.
The third seed battled past fellow veteran, Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova, 6-1 4-6 6-1 and will next play Croat Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who beat Chinese qualifier Wang Qiang in three sets.
Aside from Heather Watson’s impressive win over Sam Stosur, there was only one other seed eliminated in the early stages of day two.
Hungary’s Timea Babos, placed 25th, was beaten 7-6, 6-4 by unseeded American Nicole Gibbs as fancied players largely delivered elsewhere.
Sixth seed Dominikia Cibulkova was a straight sets winner over Denisa Allertova with a 7-5, 6-2 success while Caroline Wozniacki dropped just three games as she saw off home hope Arina Rodionova.
Russian player Elena Vesnina, seeded 14th, also won 7-5, 6-2 in her meeting with Romania’s Ana Bogdan.
Check our game-by-game updates from Andy Murray's second-round match against Andrey Rublev at the 2017 Australian Open by following our blog on skysports.com/tennis, our app for mobile devices and iPad or our Twitter account @skysportstennis on Wednesday morning.
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