Venus Williams reaches 3rd round at French Open by beating Parra Santonja 6-2, 6-4

VWilliams reaches 3rd round at French Open

PARIS — When the ball rebounded off the net back to Venus Williams, she tried hitting it twice in a row. Usually once was enough.

A persistent Williams advanced Wednesday to the third round of the French Open by beating Arantxa Parra Santonja 6-2, 6-4.

Williams lost one point when she punched a volley into the top of the net, sending the ball back onto her racket. She also whiffed on a forehand and was often bested in long rallies.

But serves at up to 125 mph kept her in control, and she was never broken.

Williams improved to 14-2 on clay in 2010. She’s seeded second behind her younger sister Serena, who scouted from behind the baseline, sitting next to their father. The Williamses could meet in the final.

No. 5-seeded Robin Soderling won 20 of the first 22 points and went on to beat unseeded American Taylor Dent 6-0, 6-1, 6-1. Soderling, who upset Rafael Nadal last year and then lost to Roger Federer in the final, has lost seven games through two matches.

Two-time semifinalist Nadia Petrova, seeded 19th, beat Agnes Szavay 6-1, 6-2.

Williams took center court for the day’s opening match again wearing her lacy corset despite a change in the weather, with cloudy skies and temperatures in the 60s. She went to deuce six times in her first service game before holding, then pulled away to take the first set.

In the second set, both players held until the seventh game. Williams drew Parra Santonja into a moonball rally, then sprinted forward to slam a winner that sent her flounce flying.

That gave Williams a 4-3 lead, and she served out the victory, her 28th in 32 matches this year.

In 13 previous French Open appearances, Williams reached the semifinals only once — in 2002, when she lost to Serena in the final. But at 29 she’s enjoying a career resurgence, and her record this year is the best on the women’s tour.

Dent, a 12th-year pro, won at Roland Garros for the first time in the opening round, but against Soderling his serve deserted him. The American double-faulted eight times and won only 11 points on his first serve.

“That was fun, huh?” Dent said. “I’d be a fool to say that I felt like I was in it at any stage. It would be tough for me to beat the 12-and-under French champion playing that way.”

Soderling remained on course for a Roland Garros rematch against Federer in the quarterfinals.

Nadal opened his bid for a fifth French Open title Tuesday by beating 18-year-old wild card Gianni Mina of France 6-2, 6-2, 6-2, and it helped to face a player ranked 655th with a lifetime tour record of 0-1.

“First day here is always a little bit more nervous than usual,” Nadal said. “I think I played bad, but I won anyway, without problems, so that’s always important.”

The match was Nadal’s first at Roland Garros since he lost to Soderling in the fourth round a year ago.

“He said he was nervous?” three-time French Open champion Mats Wilander said. “That’s a scary thing for his opponents, because that means he wants his title back more than ever before.”

This year Nadal’s again the king of clay, with a 16-0 record and three titles on the surface since mid-April. He’s the tournament favorite but bristles at the label, mindful that Federer lurks in the other half of the draw, eager to claim a second successive French Open title.

“The only favorite is the players who are going to be in the final after two Sundays,” Nadal said. “Right now it’s very difficult to speak about the favorite. I know, sure, I am one of the players that if I play my best tennis, I’m going to have chances to play a good tournament, but a lot of players think the same.”

The women’s draw is considered wide open, and the contenders include Justine Henin, who took a big step in her return from retirement Tuesday by beating Tsvetana Pironkova 6-4, 6-3. The match was Henin’s first at Roland Garros since 2007, when she won the tournament for the fourth time.

Kimiko Date Krumm also made a successful Roland Garros comeback, beating former No. 1 Dinara Safina 3-6, 6-4, 7-5. The 39-year-old Date Krumm, back following a 12-year retirement, was playing in the tournament for the first time since 1996.

The only older woman to win a match at Roland Garros in the Open era was Virginia Wade, when she was 39 in 1985.

Safina, the French Open runner-up in 2008 and 2009, has been hampered since January by a back injury.

“I will have to swallow this loss and keep on moving,” she said. “After rain, always sun comes.”