Venus Williams overcomes inconsistent outing for first-round win at Bank of the West Classic

Venus Williams wins opener

STANFORD, Calif. — Back from her post-Wimbledon down time, Venus Williams didn’t need long to get warmed up at the Bank of the West Classic.

It wasn’t always pretty.

While she looked far from sharp at times as she missed shots long and sent others into the net, the second-seeded Williams pulled out enough of her top shots to beat Stephanie Dubois of Canada 6-2, 6-3 in a first-round match at Stanford on Tuesday night.

Williams’ sister, Serena, was set to take the court next at Stanford in the $700,000 event. They are also playing doubles together, which will be more of a focus for the duo in the coming months.

“We kind of have this secret goal I can’t talk about,” Venus Williams said.

After neither player held serve through the first three games of the opening set, Williams then cruised the rest of the way in the first meeting between the two.

“It was a great match to get my rhythm, hit a lot of balls and work on my shots,” said Williams, who won titles here in 2000 and ‘02. “It’s all about the mentality. I usually adjust pretty quickly. … I do want to try new and different things.”

Still a little spacey — she admitted to some “brain freeze” — after a few weeks of sleeping in and relaxation following her Wimbledon runner-up showing to Serena, Williams said: “We love playing in L.A. I’m sorry, not L.A., I mean California. It feels like home for us.”

Earlier Tuesday, Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia outlasted defending champion Aleksandra Wozniak 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 in 2 hours, 33 minutes.

Wozniak, who recently took four weeks off, became the first Canadian in 20 years to capture a Tour title when she won the tournament last year.

In other first-round matches, eighth-seeded Marion Bartoli of France defeated Japan’s Ayumi Morita 7-6 (6), 6-3; Maria Kirilenko topped Anna Chakvetadze, the 2007 champion in this event, 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (5); fourth-seeded Jelena Jankovic beat qualifier Angela Haynes 6-3, 6-1; Samantha Stosur upset sixth-seeded Dominika Cibulkova 6-4, 6-3; Sabine Lisicki beat American qualifier Lilia Osterloh 6-2, 6-3 and qualifier Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia downed France’s Julie Coin 6-1, 7-6 (5).