Serena Williams was so frustrated she wanted to "crack every racket."
Still, Williams rallied from a rocky start to defeat Stephanie Cohen-Aloro of France 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 Tuesday night in the second round of the Rogers Cup.
Battling a nagging injury to her left ankle, Williams was unable to move with the finesse that once made her the world's top female player.
PHOTO: AFP
"I was playing so bad and she was playing so good, she was moving very well, actually," Williams said. "I've played her before and she plays well when she's down.
"I was so angry, I just wanted to crack every racket. But I didn't do it. That's a plus."
Williams said the ankle feels pretty good but that the injury has caused her knee to weaken. She planned to have her therapist look at it before deciding if she can continue playing in the tournament.
"I didn't feel very good at all," she said. "I wasn't even moving to any balls. I have tomorrow off so maybe that can help but I'll have to see what my therapist says."
With the US Open just over two weeks away, Williams is using this event as a much-needed tuneup for the final Grand Slam of the season.
Cohen-Aloro, ranked 91st in the world, broke Williams to open the match, but the American broke back then managed hold serve for a 2-1 lead. Cohen-Aloro then broke Williams again to take a 4-3 lead before breaking Williams a third time to win the set.
At that point, the crowd tried to give the star player a boost as shouts of "Go Serena!" echoed throughout the Rexall Centre.
It must have worked.
Williams seemed to gain some confidence after going up a break in the second set, putting a little more pace on her serve and making fewer unforced errors.
Williams broke Cohen-Aloro to open the third set then broke her again to take a 3-0 lead and put the match out of Cohen-Aloro's reach.
Earlier, Amelie Mauresmo acknowledged she was rusty, and Svetlana Kuznetsova appeared shaky.
Second-seeded Mauresmo, the defending champion, opened the tournament with a 6-2, 6-3 second-round win over Dally Randriantefy of Madagascar. Kuznetsova, the No. 3 seed from Russia, rallied from a horrible start to win 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 over Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain.
Mauresmo, who received a bye in the first round, is playing her first tournament since she represented France in the Fed Cup in mid-July. She was happy with some elements of her game but said there are still some things she needs to work on before the US Open later this month in New York.
"A few things worked pretty well today," she said. "I'm thinking about the serve especially. I'm still looking for the right timing on the court."
She looked solid in the first set, breaking her 53rd-ranked opponent twice. But Mauresmo struggled a bit in the second, having to fight off a couple break points in the first game and later missing a chance to serve out the match at love.
Kuznetsova, the 2004 US Open champion, committed several unforced errors against 35th-ranked Medina Garrigues. The sloppy match featured 12 service breaks and 27 total break chances.
In first-round action, 11th-seeded Jelena Jankovic of Serbia and Montenegro was upset by Li Na of China 6-4, 5-7, 6-2; No. 12 Ana Ivanovic of Serbia and Montenegro defeated Tathiana Garbin of Italy 6-2, 7-6 (3), and No. 10 Nathalie Dechy of France downed Fabiola Zuluaga of Colombia 6-2, 6-4.
No. 13 seed Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia retired from her match against Alina Jidkova of Russia due to heat illness. No. 8 Mary Pierce of France withdrew from the tournament due to a strained right quadriceps. It's the same injury that forced her to drop out of the JP Morgan Chase Open in Los Angeles last week.
Pierce is the fifth top-20 player to withdraw from the event in the past week. On Sunday, top-seeded Russian Maria Sharapova backed out due to a strained chest muscle. Venus Williams, ranked ninth in the world, withdrew last week due to the flu.
Rafael Nadal's 16-match winning streak fell against another teenager who knows him well.
The 19-year-old Spaniard wasted three match points while losing to Tomas Berdych 6-7 (4), 6-2, 7-6 (3) on Tuesday night, the first notable upset of the Cincinnati Masters.
The second-seeded Nadal was worn down from his first hard-court title.
The French Open champion beat Andre Agassi in Montreal on Sunday for his tour-leading ninth ATP win of the year, and didn't have much time to get used to the conditions in Cincinnati.
He came up one point short in a match that lasted 2 hours, 57 minutes.
"I don't have good luck in the match points," Nadal said.
Lleyton Hewitt shook off the effects of a severe stomach virus, and Russia's Marat Safin struggled with an aching knee while advancing in their opening matches Tuesday. Berdych's repeated escapes on a muggy night provided the day's best drama.
The 19-year-old Czech survived five break points to keep the third set knotted, then overcome three match points to send it to the tiebreaker, where Nadal double-faulted twice.
Berdych had beaten only one Top 10 player in his career -- he's now 2-8 against them -- but wasn't intimidated by an opponent who is the same age and needed three sets to beat him last month at Bastad.
"I've known him for so long," Berdych said.
"I saw him when he was 12. He was in the same tournament. We know each other so well."
The third-seeded Hewitt beat Igor Andreev 6-3, 6-4 on a muggy afternoon that tested his stamina. A week earlier, the Australian had to quit a first-round match in Montreal because of the stomach ailment -- the first time he's ever given up.
Steady rain delayed the day's opening matches by 2 hours, forcing organizers to scramble the schedule.
Three other seeded players lost their opening matches Tuesday after the long rain delay -- No. 8 Gaston Gaudio and No. 10 Mariano Puerta of Argentina, and No. 13 Thomas Johansson of Sweden.
Agassi had to pull out of the tournament because his chronic back problem flared up, but hopes to be ready in a couple of weeks for the US Open.
Federer, Hewitt and Safin also are heading into the Open with less time on the court than they'd like -- not that Hewitt thinks it will matter to the favorite.
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