Black Tennis Pros

In a fast 57 minutes, American Venus Williams polished off her first opponent to begin her run at the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships. After firing off seven aces and never facing a break point, Venus sent Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova off to consider her next tournament. The win came in at 6-0, 6-1.

Venus is scheduled to play Frenchwoman Alize Cornet in the next round.

Since arriving in Dubai, Venus has been asked about her thoughts on the state of drug testing in tennis, and in particular, whether she thinks the regulation which requires players to make it known where they will be available for one hour of every day places too much of a demand on the players.

Venus said, "if your match goes to one o'clock at night you don't know what's going to happen if you are focusing on recovery for the next day."

"You are not focusing on where you are going to be. You are trying to do what you have to do - even at home. First thing you do is wake up and go to play.

"There are some things in the system which need to be looked at. We want a system which works and then it's fair."

And then there was Serena... yes, she won her match too, but very differently. Serena's first opponent was Italy's Sara Errani who took the first set 4-6. In typical Serena fashion, she regrouped between sets and was then merciless to Errani, defeating her 6-2, 6-0.

When asked how her knee was holding up Serena said, "it held up well. I got off to a slow start ... just trying to get used to the conditions, and I did not really like the ball being used here.

"But I never doubted that I will win. Even when I was 4-0 down in the first set, I told myself I am just two breaks down and I can still win the set."

Therein lies the problem for anyone who stands across the net from Serena.


Photos of Venus and Serena In Dubai

Photos by Getty Images