Clijsters safely through

Top seed Kim Clijsters overcame a shaky start to ease into the second round of the US Open with a 6-2 6-3 victory over American wild card Amber Liu.

Hoping to give her No 1 ranking legitimacy by capturing her first career Grand Slam title, Clijsters was down a break early in the first set to Liu, the reigning American college champion.

But the 20-year-old Belgian took control and prevailed in just over an hour.

With defending champion Serena Williams sidelined following knee surgery, Clijsters took over the top ranking earlier this month and is the first woman to do so without a Grand Slam crown.

Clijsters reached the semi-finals in all 14 of her WTA Tour appearances this season until a third-round loss to Lina Krasnoroutskaya two weeks ago in Canada.

She has reached 11 singles finals, tying for the tour lead with six titles.

Third seed Lindsay Davenport, who is suffering with a painful foot injury, crushed Belgium’s Els Callens for a 6-1 6-0 in the first-round of the US Open.

Davenport has battled with the complaint for months but reached the final last week at New Haven, although she was forced to retire from her match against Jennifer Capriati after aggravating the injury.

“I was really relieved when the match was over and was extremely nervous beforehand just trying to figure out how my foot was going to be and if it would be OK,” Davenport said.

“Then to be able to get through and get through pretty quickly, hopefully it will help me in the long run.”

Joining Davenport in the second round was fifth seed Amelie Mauresmo of France, ninth seed Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia and 13th Vera Zvonareva of Russia.

But eighth-seeded American Chanda Rubin crashed out 6-4 6-4 to Maria Vento-Kabchi of Venezuela.

Mauresmo dispatched Indonesia’s Angelique Widjaja 6-0 6-2, Hantuchova beat former junior US Open champion Marion Bartoli of France 6-3 6-2 and Zvonareva cruised past Lubomira Kurhajcova of Slovakia 6-3 6-2.

Also, 14th seed Amanda Coetzer of South Africa trounced American qualifier Gabriela Lastra 6-0 6-2 and 19th seed Nadia Petrova of Russia beat Catalina Castano of Colombia 6-4 6-0.