SEOUL: Top-seeded Venus Williams cruised into the second round of the Korea Open here on Tuesday, defeating American qualifier Abigail Spears 6-2, 6-3.In spite of warm conditions at Seoul’s Olympic Park tennis arena, the Wimbledon champion barely broke a sweat as she used her powerful serve to dominate the match.Spears, whose right arm was heavily strapped, failed to win a single point from Williams’s first serve in the opening set.In the second set, Williams broke again in the opening game and held off a late rally from Spears to complete a comfortable win.“In a competition where there are few Americans, I don’t know why I played against one in the first game,” Williams said. “I was happy with my serve as it got me through some difficult moments at break points,” she added.In other first-round matches, defending champion No 5 Eleni Daniilidou of Greece won a hard-fought match against Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark 6-4, 6-4; Martina Muller of Germany beat local hope Han Sung-hee 6-1, 6-0; Ahsha Rolle of the United States made short work of Anne Keothavong of Britain 6-1, 6-1 and Mathilde Johansson of France defeated Junri Namigata of Japan 7-5, 6-2.Thailand’s Tamarine Tanasugarn rallied from a set down to eliminate Australia’s Casey Dellacqua 1-6, 6-3, 6-2, China’s Yuan Meng defeated New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic 6-4, 6-4 and Colombian Catalina Castano beat Hseih Su-wei of Taiwan, 6-3, 6-2.Another local favourite was eliminated as Agnes Szavay of Hungary defeated South Korea’s Lee Ye-Ra 6-2, 6-3.Williams, who won her sixth Grand Slam at Wimbledon this year, returned to the top 10 in the WTA world rankings the first time since April 2006 after reaching the US Open semifinals.
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