New York: American Venus Williams Fifth seed Li Na from China and have breezed into the second round of the 2013 US Open tennis tournament.
While unseeded Venus Williams toppled No. 12 seed Kirsten Flipkens 6-1, 6-2 in the first round, reports Xinhua. Li Na beat Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-2, 6-2.
Though Venus won the first set comfortably, she knew Flipkens was a dangerous opponent, as the Belgian once came back from a 0-6 first set to beat her 2-1 in the Toronto Rogers Cup.
Venus refused to let that happen again. The seven-time Grand Slam winner found her own way of winning the match.
Williams was usually the seeded player, but after two years of illness and injury, the seven-time major champ, is now 60th.
Venus would next meet Chinese veteran Zheng Jie in the second round. Zheng beat Kiki Bertens from the Netherlands 6-1, 6-3, in a later match.
It only took the 31-year-old Li 64 minutes to finish the match.
The two players had met each other three times before Monday's match, and Li had never lost to Govortsova.
Li will next face the winner between Petra Cetkovska and Sofia Arvidsson.
In her only meeting with Zheng nine years ago, Venus won.
