Serena Williams Made A Winning Return To Action

Serena Williams made a winning return to action on Monday when she beat Chanelle Scheepers 6-2 6-3 in the first round of the Brisbane International.

The 30-year-old, playing for the first time since the US Open final, eventually overpowered the South African to set up a clash with Bojana Jovanovski of Serbia.

Williams was broken in her first service game before settling down, requiring just 68 minutes to advance with Scheepers not helping her cause by serving eight double faults.

That was definitely not easy, I think she played really well," Williams said. "I didn't expect that."

Top seed Samantha Stosur also breezed into the second round of the Brisbane International.

Home hope Stosur, ranked sixth in the world, eased to a 6-2 6-3 win over Anastasiya Yakimova.

Ana Ivanovic set up a second round meeting with Kim Clijsters as she eased past Tamira Paszek of Austria 6-3 6-3.

Ivanovic has lost on each of the four occasions she has played the Belgian and is expecting another tough test.

"It's a tough match, no doubt, at least it's in the second round and not the first," she said.

"I just need to go out there and test myself and push and see how far I am from the top players. I just want to try and apply things that I have worked on and see how that plays."

In other matches, second seed Andrea Petkovic overcame a mid-match slump to see off the challenge of Israel's Shahar Peer, the German eventually pulling through 7-6 1-6 6-3.

Seventh seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova also went through after her opponent Polona Hercog was forced to retire in the second set with the score 6-1 4-1.

Posted in: Topics