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.

“She’s a good player,” Williams said of Larcher De Brito. “I’ve played her before which was good so I knew what to expect.

“She doesn’t look it but she definitely packs a punch. It was good for me because most people that do play nowadays hit really hard. It was good to get someone that hit really hard early on.”

Williams made a whirlwind start, breaking her opponent’s serve in the first game, consolidating with the aid of a 109mph ace and breaking again to love to race into a 3-0 lead.

De Brito won only a point in her next service game and Williams duly served out to wrap up the set in double quick time.

There was no let-up from the champion at the start of the second set as she restricted her young opponent to just three points in the first two games.

De Brito raised the biggest cheer from the crowd when she won the longest rally of the match in the opening game of the second set.

She then stopped the rot by holding her serve in the third game when the football-loving Williams put a forehand into the net and, from then on, the Centre Court crowd roared every point garnered by the teenager.

The atmosphere grew when De Brito held twice more but it merely delayed the inevitable as Williams continued to look impregnable on her own serve.

De Brito saved a match point in the ninth game but Williams served out to wrap up an impressive win.

Sam Stosur, meanwhile, became the second top-six seed to exit at the first round of the Wimbledon women’s singles tournament after losing in straight sets to Estonian qualifier Kaia Kanepi.

Stosur followed fellow French Open finalist Francesca Schiavone in making an early departure from SW19 after a 6-4 6-4 loss.

The Australian, the sixth seed, had been tipped as a potential winner after beating Justine Henin and Serena Williams at Roland Garros but she struggled on grass against world number 80 Kanepi.

Williams will meet Russian Anna Chakvetadze. Compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova in the second round with the 19th seed beating Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan 6-2 6-7 6-4. Seventh seed Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland beat Melinda Czink of Hungary 6-3 6-3 while Jie Zheng also won in straight sets.