Venus wins in Acapulco

Although it was tougher than the scoreline might suggest, Venus Williams was relatively untroubled in her opening match of the Abierto Mexicano TELCEL, beating Mathilde Johansson, 62 63.

Williams, the No.1 seed and defending champion on the red clay of Acapulco, faced break points as she served in the first game of the match but held and wound up clinching the first set in 34 minutes. The first four games of the second set all went to deuce and it was Johansson who seemed more in form, breaking for 2-1 and holding a point for 3-1; but Williams rolled from there, winning five of the last six games to prevail in an hour and 25 minutes.

"I'm just trying to get my rhythm on the clay so it was good to win," Williams said. "I really had to work for this tournament last year. This time last year I played a really tough three set match before I won, so it's a little better today. But I still just want to take it round by round and hopefully win."

The other seeds in action - No.3 seed Gisela Dulko, No.5 seed Carla Suárez Navarro and No.7 seed Roberta Vinci - all advanced as well. Suárez Navarro had the breeziest win of them all, blanking qualifier Greta Arn, 60 60.

"For me it was a very good match. I needed this victory and played very well. I'll take this confidence into the second round," the Spaniard said. "I feel a bit like I'm at home here. For me it's easy to speak with the people. It's perfect."

Kaia Kanepi, Edina Gallovits, Mariya Koryttseva and qualifiers Catalina Castaño and Laura Pous Tio also won. Koryttseva was a point from 5-1 down in the third but beat last week's Bogota finalist, Angelique Kerber, 57 75 64.