Aryna Sabalenka only took an hour to send an early statement at Roland Garros as she demolished Kamilla Rakhimova with the loss of one game.
The world number one was in no mood for pleasantries as she sent an early statement in Paris by thrashing Rakhimova.
A solitary hold of serve in the fourth game of the opening set was Rakhimova’s only bright spot as she couldn’t take advantage of two break points in the second set.
It was all done in 60 minutes for Sabalenka who is bidding to win her first Roland Garros title amid a positive clay court season which included a title in Madrid.
Speaking in her on-court interview Sabalenka admitted she is happy to start off on a positive note, “I’m super happy to be back in Paris, I love playing in front of all you guys,” Sabalenka was quoted by the BBC website as saying.
“I hope I can do really good here. It’s hard in round one to play someone you really like, but I’m happy to have got the win.”
Next for Sabalenka will either be qualifier Lucrezia Stefanini or Jil Teichmann who play later on Sunday.
From one Grand Slam champion to another and Petra Kvitova’s struggles continued as she exited in the first round.
There was a positive start to her opening round contest against Viktorija Golubic but Kvitova was edged out in a tight contest 3-6 6-0 6-4 in 1 hour and 43 minutes.
The 35 year-old has now won one match from five tournaments since her comeback and will hope to reignite some energy over the grass court season.
In other results 13th seed Elina Svitolina cruised past Zeynep Sonmez with the loss of two games as the Ukrainian bids to go deep once again at Roland Garros.
However, 28th seed and Rome semi-finalist Peyton Stearns was thrashed 6-0 6-3 by German Eva Lys.
The German will now face Canadian rising start Victoria Mboko after the qualifier defeated Lulu Sun 6-1 7-6(4).
