Kim Clijsters tossed her towel to a young boy, smiled, then eagerly began signing autographs as she slowly made her way off center court at the US Open with a victory in hand.
The Belgian tennis star certainly felt some relief after she won her first match in a major since becoming the world's No. 1 player earlier this month.
PHOTO: AFP
The top-seeded Clijsters defeated wild-card Amber Liu of the US 6-2, 6-3 in 1 hour, 2 minutes to reach the second round.
PHOTO: EPA
"It was hard in the beginning," Clijsters said. "I didn't play a match since I lost in Toronto. Playing another night match is always a little bit different."
Especially when your match is the prelude into an emotional retirement tribute for one of the game's greatest: Pete Sampras.
After Clijsters and Liu cleared out of Arthur Ashe Stadium, Sampras formally bid farewell to tennis, crying for several minutes during a long standing ovation from fans who held signs and screamed, "We love you, Pete!" Former stars John McEnroe, Boris Becker and Jim Courier made speeches.
Sampras, now 32 and a father, leaves with 64 singles titles. He was the world's top-ranked player a record 286 weeks and finished six years at No. 1, another mark. Sampras won the Open in 1990 to become the youngest champion at age 19, and he won his final Slam here last year.
"I'm not retiring because I'm married and have a son, I'm retiring because I have nothing to prove to myself," he said. "I know in my heart it's time."
After the ceremony, sixth-seeded Australian Lleyton Hewitt, Clijsters' boyfriend, hit 26 winners in beating Victor Hanescu 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.
"That's a good one to get under my belt," Hewitt said. "After the ceremonies, I wanted to get out there and get off to a good start and put pressure on him early, and I was able to do that."
Hewitt, the 2001 champion, and top-ranked Andre Agassi are the only former Open champions in the draw. Agassi plays his first match Tuesday against Alex Corretja of Spain.
Michael Chang, set to retire after the Open, plays Chilean No. 15-seeded Fernando Gonzalez on Tuesday.
Clijsters and French Open champion Justine Henin-Hardenne are the top seeds in the tournament, and the 20-year-old Clijsters is looking for her first career Grand Slam title. Serena and Venus Williams, who have split the last four Opens, both are sidelined with injuries.
Clijsters won 79 percent of her first-serve points, converted four of six break-point opportunities and won 10 points at the net. She hit 20 winners to seven for the 19-year-old Liu, the reigning NCAA singles champion from Stanford who's ranked 290th in the world.
"I felt like I served well. I think that's always important," Clijsters said.
Third-seeded Lindsay Davenport of the United States also advanced to the second round, playing through pain in her ailing left foot to beat Els Callens 6-1, 6-0 in just 46 minutes.
Davenport is battling a nerve disorder in her foot that required a cortisone shot Saturday night after she retired during the final of the Pilot Pen against America's Jennifer Capriati.
"I was really relieved when the match was over and was extremely nervous beforehand just trying to figure out how my foot was going to be," said Davenport, the 1998 champion. "To be able to get through and get through pretty quickly hopefully will help me in the long run."
She fared better than another seeded American woman.
Eighth-seeded American Chanda Rubin was erratic in losing to Maria Vento-Kabchi, a Venezuelan ranked 84th, 6-4, 6-4. It was Vento-Kabchi's first Grand Slam victory since she reached the second round of the Australian Open in 2002. French No. 9 Sebastien Grosjean was another upset victim on the first day.
He lost to Ramon Delgado of Paraguay 6-4, 6-7 (3), 4-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4. Grosjean, bothered recently by elbow problems, had two match points in the fourth set, double-faulting on the second one.
French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain defeated Jan Vacek of the Czech Republic 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.
American wild-card entry Alex Bogomolov Jr., was taken away on a stretcher after cramping severely during a 3-hour match against Martin Verkerk. The 22-year-old Bogomolov, from Miami, retired one game into the fifth set after blowing two match points in an 11-9 fourth-set tiebreaker.
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