French Open 2019: Day two review as Johanna Konta claims welcome win & Serena Williams recovers from bad start


Serena Williams recovered from a stuttering start to defeat Vitalia Diatchenko while Johanna Konta finally ended her French Open hoodoo to reach the second round for the first time in five attempts.

An upset looked on the cards when Russian Diatchenko, ranked 83rd, took the first set but Williams lost just one game thereafter in a 2-6 6-1 6-0 victory.

Williams arrived in Paris having played just four tournaments this year, withdrawing from all of them except the Australian Open, where she lost from 5-1 up in the deciding set of her quarter-final against Karolina Pliskova.

Latterly Williams has been troubled by a left knee problem, and a picture of her sitting in a wheelchair last week when she took her daughter to Disneyland added to concerns about her fitness.

Given her paucity of matches - this was Diatchenko's 38th match of the season and Williams' 10th - it was not surprising that the 37-year-old appeared horribly rusty.

A slew of errors allowed 28-year-old Diatchenko, whose calendar this year has included events in Shrewsbury and Bolton, to take the opening set comfortably.

Williams was a picture of frustration, screaming at herself and looking ever more agonised with each miss.

But the American's only first-round loss at a grand slam came here seven years ago and she set about making sure there would not be a repeat.

Williams has shown many times that her form going into a grand slam has little relevance to what she can achieve once there and, by the end of the 90-minute contest, she was looking much more like the player who has dominated the sport for two decades.

Konta claims breakthrough win

Konta has had a breakthrough clay-court season this year, winning more tour-level matches than in the rest of her career combined, capped by an unexpected run to the final of the Italian Open in Rome last weekend.

That was enough lift her back among the 32 seeds in Paris and she took advantage of a kind draw by seeing off German qualifier Lottner 6-4 6-4 in an hour and 19 minutes.

The British number one will take on American Lauren Davis in round two.

Caroline Wozniacki was eliminated in the first round by Russian Viktoria Kudermetova despite winning the first set to love.

The 13th seed had heavy strapping on her left calf and fell to a 0-6 6-3 6-3 defeat, her first loss in the opening round of a grand slam since Wimbledon 2016.

Wozniacki, who revealed at the end of last season she had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, had failed to complete her last two matches prior to arriving in Paris.

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