Serena Williams hit 40 winners as she beat the Budapest runner-up Elena Vesnina, 6-3 6-1 and set up a second round clash with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova at the Mutua Madrilena Open. Serena served particularly well including hitting four aces in one game in the second set. She produced some beautiful angles throughout the match and defended very well against Vesnina, who was thoroughly outplayed. Both players seemed to have some issues with the blue clay surface and some irregular bounces. There has been a very mixed reaction to the clay so far; Sergiy Stakhovsky noted on Twitter that his qualifying match, which was on court 6 was the worst court on the ATP tour. I think it looks great, but if the players are not happy with playing on it, then there are going to be problems...
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| Serena Williams |
In yesterday's action, Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova both moved into the second round with straight set wins. Azarenka was handed a very tricky first round match against Svetlana Kuznetsova, but managed the task well coming through, 6-4 7-6. Sharapova continued her excellent form of late as she eased past Irina-Camelia Begu, 6-0 6-3. Caroline Wozniacki fought for over three hours to get past Ksenia Pervak, 7-6 3-6 6-4. Wozniacki picked up a nasty ankle injury and fought valiantly to progress to a second round meeting with Mona Barthel. I will be very surprised if Wozniacki was to take to the court, let alone beat Barthel in the second round. Varvara Lepchenko and Roberta Vinci both won by beating seeds. Lepchenko beat Francesca Schiavone, 6-4 6-7 6-3 and came back admirably in the final set after wasting match points in the second set. Vinci produced a serving masterclass with 16 aces (including an astonishing seven aces in one game!) to beat Dominika Cibulkova, 6-3 6-2.
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| Caroline Wozniacki |
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