SERENA Williams moved past the halfway mark in her quest for a rare calendar year grand slam and Novak Djokovic clicked smoothly back into gear as the 129th Wimbledon Championships opened for business On Monday.
Serial title winner Williams, 33, has the Australian Open and French Open under her belt this year and her bid for a sixth Wimbledon crown began with a 6-4 6-1 victory over Russian debutant Margarita Gasparyan.
She swaggered on to Court One under sunny skies but took a while to warm to the task of chalking up a 22nd consecutive victory in grand slams, dropping her mighty serve in the opening game and looking rattled.
World number one Williams was warned for an audible obscenity when trailing 3-2 but soon transferred her aggression into some belting winners to overwhelm the world number 113.
Only two women in the professional era have won all four grand slams in the same year – Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988 – but 20-time major singles champion Williams is closing in.
Djokovic elected not to play any warm-up tournaments on grass prior to arriving in south west London but the 28-year-old defending champion quickly found his feet on the slick Centre Court turf against Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber.
Like Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka, who crushed Djokovic’s hopes of completing his career grand slam in the French Open final, Kohlschreiber boasts a lethal backhand but the world number 33 never threatened a first-day shock.
Djokovic chose his moments to push his shoulder against the door, breaking in the 10th game of the opening two sets, and sauntered through with minimum of fuss 6-4 6-4 6-4.
“This is the cradle of our sport, it doesn’t get any bigger than Wimbledon Centre Court and it’s an honour and to be defending champion,” Djokovic said after signing autographs on the world’s most famous court.
Men’s fourth seed Wawrinka was also in action later and was a 6-2 7-5 7-6 winner over Portugal’s Joao Sousa.
Marcos Baghdatis meanwhile began his Wimbledon campaign in style as he fought back to defeat American Donald Young in the opening round last night.
The Cypriot dropped a tight first set 7-5, but came back strongly to win the next three 6-2 6-4 6-4.
Baghdatis, now ranked 54 in the world, had been in good form in Nottingham last week before a calf injury forced him to withdraw from the semi-finals, but he showed no ill effects out on Court 17.
The 30-year-old will now play John Millman in the second round, after the Australian world No.120 thrashed 19th seed Tommy Robredo in his opener.
Sixteen grand slam champions started out in the men’s and women’s singles, with several of them joining Djokovic and Williams in the second round.
Croatia’s Marin Cilic, who joined the elite by winning the U.S. Open last year, beat Hiroki Moriya of Japan 6-3 6-2 7-6(4) while Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic, the 2008 French Open champion, powered past China’s Xu Yifan 6-1 6-1.
2004 champion Maria Sharapova beat British wildcard Johanna Konta 6-2 6-2, while Belarussian Victoria Azarenka, the former world number one, beat Anett Kontaveit of Estonia 6-2 6-1.
Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro became the biggest name in the women’s draw to fall, the ninth seed thrashed 6-2 6-0 by Jelena Ostapenko.
Fighting tooth and nail as only he knows how, old warrior Lleyton Hewitt waved an emotional goodbye to Wimbledon after losing a dramatic five-set match to Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen.
Thirteen years after beating Argentina’s David Nalbandian to win the title, the 34-year-old, who will retire after next year’s Australian Open, went toe to toe with fellow veteran Nieminen but went down 3-6 6-3 4-6 6-0 11-9.
Australia’s Nick Kyrgios denied calling an official “dirty scum” but could find himself in trouble following a bad-tempered exchange in his first-round victory over Diego Schwartzman.
Kyrgios was two sets up in his 6-0 6-2 7-6(6) win over the Argentine when he confronted umpire Mohamed Lahyani about a contentious call in the third set.
The Australian demanded a referee come onto court to clarify the rules and was then heard saying “dirty scum”.
“I wasn’t referring to the ref at all there, “It was towards myself”” Kyrgios, told reporters.
