Serving powerfully and convincingly, she imposed herself on her taller but less athletic opponent, Akgul Amanmuradova, to win their first-round match, 6-3, 6-1, just as it reached the hour mark.
Williams smacked seven aces at up to 118 miles per hour, totaled 23 winners to only five unforced errors. She made zero unforced errors in the second set, taking the last six games and the last 12 points. She claimed 15 of the final 17 points she served.
“This time, I couldn’t come back too soon, or I’d be in the same situation as I was in Australia,’’ Williams said. “That was very painful; it’s not something to go through twice.’’
“I do realize I don’t have as many matches,’’ said Williams, only 5-2 this season and only 9-3 since last July. “So, yeah, for sure, I know I need to kind of come out firing. Been pretty good at that in the past — and today.’’
Williams, a five-time Wimbledon singles champion who turned 31 last week, could pass for a grande dame at Wimbledon if not for her next opponent, Kimiko Date-Krumm, the Japanese star who is still scampering around the grass at 40.
Date-Krumm became the second-oldest woman in the Open era to win a singles match at Wimbledon, beating Katie O’Brien yesterday, 6-0, 7-5. The victory came 22 years after she first played here in 1989. Date-Krumm last won a match here in 1996, when she reached the semifinals, losing to Steffi Graf on Center Court. She later took an unprecedented Open-era break of 12 years from the Grand Slam tournaments.
It will be her first meeting against Williams, and the 57th-ranked Date-Krumm — underpowered despite all her wiles — will be a heavy underdog even if she has played a lot more tennis of late than Williams.
