MELBOURNE, Australia -- Venus Williams skipped all the
warmup tournaments for the Australian Open. Then she received more
opposition than she wanted in the first round from an 18-year-old
Spaniard with a strong backhand.
The Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Olympic champion finally wore down
Maria Jose Martinez in the third set and won 6-3, 2-6, 6-0 on Tuesday.
|  | | Martina Hingis needed just 38 minutes to advance to the second round of the Australian Open. |
"It's a good thing to have a little test in the first round,
especially since I haven't played any tournaments prior to this,"
Williams said.
But the No. 3 seed added that at the start of the third set, "I
was of course concerned because she was playing well and very
consistently."
Williams' sister, Serena, seeded sixth, advanced more easily to
the second round, beating Taiwan's Janet Lee 6-1, 6-4.
Venus' opponent, Martinez, won the Orange Bowl, a major
tournament for juniors, in 1999. To her Grand Slam debut, she
brought a high-kicking forehand, a two-handed backhand that she
steps into as if hitting a hockey slap shot, and the audacity to
test Williams' speed with drop shots.
Two of those drop shots cost Martinez a first-set service break.
She netted one, and Williams countered the next with a better one.
Martinez broke twice in the second set, forcing Williams into
errors, and then charged to a 40-15 lead in the final set's second
game.
Williams came back with seven straight points for a 2-0 lead and
didn't lose another game, although she faced two break points
before holding for 4-0.
"I just hit a few mistakes at the wrong times in the second
set," said Williams, who warmed up in an all-black outfit with a
black visor, and then for the match took off her jacket to show a
low-cut blue top.
It was Williams' first new outfit since she signed a $40 million
endorsement deal with Reebok. Williams, who studies fashion design,
repeatedly tugged at the wraparound top, and while she denied that
it bothered her, she added, "I didn't design that one."
Recovered from a recent bout with anemia, Williams said she
feels very motivated when she comes to Australia.
"I make a 24-hour trip just to come. The ticket is pretty
expensive. I feel that I deserve to reward myself with some kind of
a title," she said.
Martinez, ranked No. 152, arrived from a warmup tournament in
Canberra, where she lost in the first round of qualifying. But she
won her qualifying rounds here and, in the second set against
Williams, played what she considers her best set ever.
"I'm so happy. It was my first time playing a top 10 player,"
said Martinez, who was a runner-up in the Australian Open junior
tournament last year.
"I played good because I had nothing to lose," she added, but
in the third set "I was getting mentally tired and she started
breaking me."
Later in the day,
Martina Hingis needed just 38 minutes to stroll into the second round with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Hungary's Katalin Marosi-Aracama on Tuesday. Hingis' second-round
meeting will be against Belgian Els Callens.
Hingis, Australian Open champion in 1997, 1998 and 1999, was
far too good for her nervous opponent, hitting winners at will
at Rod Laver Arena.
Hingis and the Williams sisters were joined in the second round by No. 7
Mary Pierce, the 1995 champion; No. 9 Elena Dementieva, the Olympic
silver medalist and a U.S. Open semifinalist; and No. 10 Amanda
Coetzer, a two-time semifinalist here.
Pierce beat Austria's Sylvia Plischke 6-1, 6-3, Dementieva beat
American Lilia Osterloh 6-4, 6-3, and Coetzer defeated Canada's
Sonya Jeyaseelan 6-2, 6-4.
No. 13 Amelie Mauresmo beat Japan's Ai Sugiyama 6-3, 6-3 and will play Nicole Pratt in the second round after the Australian beat Maja Palaversic of Croatia 6-4, 6-2
earlier in the day.
Mauresmo was beaten by Martina Hingis in the 1999 Australian
Open but has struggled with her fitness since then.
She was forced to pull out of her semifinal against Lindsay
Davenport at last week's Sydney international because of a
recurring back problem but was passed fit to play in Melbourne.
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AUDIO/VIDEO
 A struggling Venus Williams managed to get by Maria Jose Martinez in three sets.
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