Former world Nos. 1 Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters made triumphant returns to the WTA after long layoffs with victories on Wednesday at the WTA and ATP Miami hardcourt tournament.
Seven-time Grand Slam champion Williams, who has not played a WTA event since pulling out of last year’s US Open, defeated Japan’s Kimiko Date-Krumm 6-0, 6-3 in 77 minutes.
Williams announced at last year’s US Open she had been diagnosed with the auto-immune disorder Sjogren syndrome, an illness that saps her energy and causes pain in her joints.
Photo: Reuters
Williams, who did play doubles for the US Fed Cup team last month, pulled out of last year’s US Open after a first-round victory.
Belgium’s Clijsters, playing for the first time since her Australian Open semi-final loss to World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, rallied to eliminate Australia’s Jarmila Gajdosova 4-6, 6-1, 6-0.
Clijsters, who won at Miami in 2005 and 2010, skipped last week’s Indian Wells tournament to rest her injured ankle, the latest in a list of ailments in the past year that has also included a bad shoulder, wrist and abdomen worries.
“It’s just a matter of getting those matches again,” she said. “One thing I can count on is I have the experience. It doesn’t take me that long to get used to it again, but it has become tougher.”
Saying her ankle is at 95 percent, Clijsters pondered how close she came to downing top seed Azarenka in Australia and how strong the top-ranked player, now 23-0 for the season, has played.
Williams advanced to a second-round match against Czech third seed, and Wimbledon champion, Petra Kvitova, who had a first-round bye, while next up for Clijsters is her first match against Germany’s 14th-seeded Julia Goerges.
Kvitova defeated Williams in 2008 in their only prior match.
“She has been playing very well in the last 12 months or so,” Williams said. “But I have had a lot of experience with playing well. I’ll go in focused on executing my game and trying my absolute best.”
First-round matches began in the men’s draw, with Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez making his ATP farewell as Frenchman Nicolas Mahut defeated him 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (7/3). Gonzalez last month announced his decision to retire after this event.
Russian Nikolay Davydenko outlasted American James Blake 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, to book a second-round date with US 10th seed John Isner, the runner-up to Roger Federer last week at Indian Wells.
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