Tennis News : Serena wins in Brisbane comeback

Serena has won 13 Grand Slam titles

Serena Williams marked her return to competition in Australia with a 6-2 6-3 win over Chanelle Scheepers in round one of the Brisbane International.

The 30-year-old former world number one last played down under when she won the Australian Open title in 2010.

It was her first match since she was fined for an outburst in September's US Open final defeat against Sam Stosur.

Former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic beat Tamira Paszek 6-3 6-3 and faces Kim Clijsters in round two.

Williams had her service broken in the opening game against South African Scheepers.

However, she fired seven aces and took advantage of eight double-faults by Scheepers to secure victory in 68 minutes and book a match with Serbian Bojana Jovanovski in the second round.

"That was definitely not easy, I think she (Scheepers) played really well," said Williams. "I didn't expect that."

Ivanovic, another former world number one, took a shade under 80 minutes to dispose of Austria's Paszek and she said: "There were some nerves involved, particularly early on but I felt I played well. Obviously there is still some room for improvement but it was the first match and I'm happy."

SERENA'S SLAMS

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Australian Open: 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010

French Open: 2002

Wimbledon: '02, '03, '09, 10

US Open: 1999, 2002, 2008

Four-time world number one Clijsters, now ranked 13th, has beaten Ivanovic in all four of their previous meetings.

The 28-year-old Belgian defeated Simona Halep of Romania in the opening round, her first match since August following an abdominal injury.

Ivanovic squandered five match points in her last match against Clijsters in March. Asked about their latest meeting, the Serbian added: "It will be a battle and I just want to try and apply things that I have worked on and see how that plays.

"I just need to go out there and test myself and push and see how far I am from the top players."

Top seed Stosur beat Anastasiya Yakimova of Belarus 6-2 6-3 later on Monday.

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This week Ryan Segelke of High Altitude Tennis discusses the different forehand and backhand stances. As a tennis player it is important that you understand and can do every tennis stance to have an all around game. The closed stance is used when stepping into the court on your forehand or backhand and to one side. It's important to make sure that you adjust your back foot on your tennis stance to make sure your hips do not lock out, and that they can continue the Kinetic chain until your hips face forwards. If you do not let the back foot swing around in your closed stance tennis forehand then you will essentially be hitting your tennis forehand groundstroke or tennis backhand groundstroke primarily with your arms. Square stance tennis forehand is something we highly recommend for our players at High Altitude Tennis Academy. This allows you to be able to step into the court, take time away from your opponent and drive the ball through the tennis court. Also, your square stance tennis forehand will allow you to move forward when needed, allowing you to get to the net more efficiently giving you more angle to finish the point. The semi open stance is used when you don't have enough time to adjust your feet and get in position for the square stance tennis forehand. An open stance is not needed because the player is likely not wide enough to need to use the open stance for recovery. The open stance tennis forehand is used when pulled wide and will be the most efficient way ...
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