Serena glad to play hard ball in opener

SERENA WILLIAMS was delighted to meet some brief resistance as she made a confident start to her defence of the women’s singles title at Wimbledon yesterday.

The world number one gained a 6-0 6-4 first-round victory over Michelle Larcher De Brito, a 17-year-old from Portugal who was over-run at the start of the match but recovered to give the three-time champion a work-out in a competitive second set.

Williams was all power and precision as she took just three minutes over an hour to see off the girl thought to have the loudest shriek in women’s tennis and set up a second-round meeting with Anna Chakvetadze, of Russia, tomorrow.