By Chris Davies
May 26 2003

Serena Williams displayed an impressive show in her first round match against Barbara Rittner on the way to starting her defence of French Open title, Justine Henin-Hardenne and Amelie Mauresmo also progressed but Mary Pierce lost in straight sets Williams who are normally rusty or unimpressive in their first rounds at the Grand Slam tournaments seemed on top form comfortably winning 6-2, 6-1.

Rittner did break the world number 1's serve for 2-2 in second set but could not manage to keep up with the strong American chasing down balls and powerful shots.

The defending champion raced to a 4-0 lead in the second set closing it out 6-1 to book a place in the second round.

Justine Henin-Hardenne faired less well in her first round match against Patricia Wartusch of Austria. The Belgian one of the favourites for the title struggled throughout the match with her serve and made a lot of unforced errors.

The Austrian was ahead 5-4 in the second set and served for it but Henin-Hardenne picked her game up at key moments taking the next 3 games to win the match. She will next play Jelena Kostanic of Croatia.

Amelie Mauresmo comfortably won her match-up against fellow French girl Virginia Razzano but struggled in the second set. Mauresmo was 4-2 down but Razzano could not handle the pressure from being infront allowing Amelie back in.

Mary Pierce who wasn't seeded this year faced 28th seed Clarissa Fernandez. Pierce form was not consistent at all making big errors in all aspects of her game with some wild shots. The former champion smiled through the match but will be distraught by losing so early in probably her favourite tournament on the tour.


Alexandra Stevenson the number 27 seed continued her dreadful season losing to Dally Randriantefy 6-3, 6-3.

A big win for Anastasia Myskina over fellow Russian Dinara Safina which we at TeamWTA thought would be a fantastic first round match. But Myskina comfortably eased through 6-2, 6-2.

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