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Clijsters wobbles but reaches second round at US Open

A year on from her stunning win at Flushing Meadows, when she stepped out of retirement and motherhood to lift her second US Open crown, Clijsters was again in a dominant mood on the Arthur Ashe Stadium Court.

She sped through an uneven first set in just 18 minutes but allowed the 30-year-old Arn, ranked 104^th in the world, to play her way back into the match with two breaks of serve for a 4-0 lead in the second set.

Whether it was over-confidence after the first set romp, lethargy brought on by the sultry conditions, or the lingering effects of the right thigh injury that hampered her in Montreal, Clijsters looked suddenly very uncomfortable.

She battled back to 4-3 down, but Arn served for the set two games later only to be broken by a resurgent Clijsters.

The Belgian held for a 6-5 lead and then broke Arn again to move through in 62 minutes.

The 27-year-old Belgian second seed will next play 19-year-old Australian qualifier Sally Peers, who impressed in a 6-1, 6-0 win over Aleksandra Wozniak of Canada.

“I felt I was hitting the ball well, but I lost my position and footing a bit on court at the start of the second set and wasn’t aggressive enough and she started going forward a little more with some risks and put the pressure on me,” Clijsters said.

“I just tried to change a few little things just with myself - take smaller steps amd make sure those feet keep moving.”

There was a more comfortable winning start for this year’s surprise French Open champion, Francesca Schiavone of Italy, who coasted past Japan’s Ayumi Morita 6-1, 6-0 in just 58 minutes.

The 30-year-old Schiavone played the tennis of her lifetime to win in Paris in June, but since then she has struggled to reproduce that kind of form and intensity.

That was only normal, she insisted.

“When you try to reach in the top of the mountain, then you can’t go more up. So you have to go down and come back up again,” Schiavone said.

“I think I am doing this one. And when it’s time to come back up again, I will do it. I’m working to do it.”

Among others to go through early on were Russia’s Elena Dementieva, the runner-up here in 2004, when she also reached the final of the French Open. The 12^th seed had too much firepower for Olga Govortsova of Belarus, winning 6-1, 6-2.

Elena Baltacha meanwhile gave a much needed boost to British tennis by defeating Petra Martic of Croatia, who beat her at Wimbledon, 6-2, 6-2, while American Melanie Oudin, a huge crowd favourite here last year when she reached the quarter-finals, ousted Olga Savchuk of Ukraine 6-3, 6-0

There was disappointment though for former world number one Dinara Safina who is on the comeback trail after being out for three months the recurrence of a a bad back injury.

The tall Russian put on a battling display against Slovak veteran Daniela Hantuchova, but bowed in the end 6-3, 6-4.