Serena Williams storms to first-round U.S. Open victory

That would be the year of her most recent U.S. Open title, when she won all 14 of her sets, often in fashions that resembled her 6-1, 6-4 win inside Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday.

The 20-minute first set and 57-minute two-set cruise made light of the fact that her draw actually qualified as tough. As the No. 3 player in the world these days, Williams drew the 46th-ranked Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine, who among other things at age 22 won a singles title on grass at Birmingham, England, and the Australian Open doubles title with her sister Alona.

From the outset, though, Williams looked just fine and pulverized ground strokes into corners to go ahead 4-0 and hint she'd extend her first-round grand-slam singles record to 37-0. Bondarenko finally got into things during the second set, where they came to 5-4 on serve, but Williams broke Bondarenko fairly methodically to close matters about 80 minutes before her older sister, Venus Williams, would take the court to open up against Samantha Stosur of Australia.

Serena Williams, the champion here in 1999 and 2002, won her last grand slam at the 2007 Australian Open, before losing to No. 1 Justine Henin at the ensuing three other majors that year, and having an excellent 2008 season that has included three titles and an appearance in the Wimbledon final.