Serena blazes into second round at French Open

REUTERS: Serena Williams declared she was “not a cold-weather person” but her game still caught fire as she demolished Slovakian Magdalena Rybarikova 6-2 6-0 to start the defence of her French Open title on Tuesday.

The American, who owns 21 grand slam singles titles, will next face either Brazilian Teliana Pereira or Czech Kristyna Pliskova.

Rybarikova hung on until 2-2 in the first set before Williams went into overdrive to win 10 games in a row.

She wrapped it up on her first match point when Rybarikova sent a crosscourt backhand into the net on a cold day at Roland Garros. “I’m not a cold-weather person. It’s been really tough,” Williams told reporters after her match was played out in 13 degrees Celsius.

“Today it was warmer... a couple matches before (mine), but by the time I got out there, it was just really cold.

“I don’t like playing in cold weather. But everything felt pretty good, so it was okay.”

Williams delayed the start of her claycourt season as she skipped the Madrid Open because of illness, kicking it off earlier this month in Rome, where she won the title without dropping a set.

Halep keeps her wits to reach round three

REUTERS: Former finalist Simona Halep survived a first-set wobble to reach the third round of the French Open for only the second time in her career with a 7-6(5) 6-2 win over Kazakhstan’s Zarina Diyas on Wednesday.

The Romanian sixth seed surrendered her serve twice in the opening four games to trail 4-1 but delved into her wealth of experience to finally subdue her 90th-ranked opponent 7-5 in the tiebreak.

More exchanges of breaks followed in the second set before Halep finally found her groove to take a 5-2 lead and set up three match points on Diyas’ serve.

The first one went begging but Halep’s gritty baseline play paid off in the next point as Diyas bowed out after flicking a forehand long to end a 10-shot rally.

“The first set was very tough and I was very nervous as I seemed to be fighting for every point,” Halep said in a courtside interview.

The good news for Halep is that the only previous time she reached the last 32, she made it all the way to the 2014 Roland Garros final.

Halep and her bizarre black and white zebra print dress will be back on court on Friday when she takes on Japan’s Naomi Osaka for a place in the fourth round.