Williams puts down a marker of greatness

SHE'S JUST a kid. A 5ft 11in, 9st 1lb kid. She likes basketball and waterparks. She braids her hair with coloured beads. She's taking guitar lessons. And yesterday in Paris, when somebody mentioned a visit to the Louvre, she wanted to know if it featured any instruments of torture.

That may or may not have something to do with the fact that she was raised in Compton, the Los Angeles neighbourhood famous for riots and rappers. Anyway, just three weeks short of her 17th birthday, Venus Williams turned up at the Stade Roland Garros and, by beating Naoko Sawamatsu in the first round of the French Open, put down a marker of greatness.

There is nothing quite as exhilarating as the arrival of a talent destined to dominate a sport, and this year we have had two of them, both well advertised in advance. Barely a month ago Tiger Woods went to Atlanta and won his first major tournament as a professional golfer. Now along comes Venus Williams to win the first match of her first Grand Slam competition.

And what a match. Williams and Sawaniatsu were out at 11.0 yesterday morning, opening the tournament on Court One before a sparse crowd under a perfect blue sky and in temperatures climbing towards the mid 70s. Two hours and 37 minutes later, shaking hands with the applause of packed grandstands in their ears, they had produced something worthy of a final.

Williams won by 6-2, 6-7 (2-7), 7-5, but there were times in the third set when it looked as though she might be about to make an early exit. Her willingness to stay and fight were as impressive as everything else about her.

A tennis player since the age of four, groomed by her father, Richard, who promises that she will be the world number one before her 18th birthday (and that a younger sister, Serena, will be even better), she has clear physical advantages: power, reach, leverage.

She flies around the court in a swirl of dynamism, crouching as she winds up her drives, long limbs shooting out at all angles as she follows through. She is almost impossible to lob, and smashes with ferocious relish. Every now and then she hits a low, raking shot with an extra dose of venom, and the crowd buzzes.

She also has deficiencies, notably on yesterday's form - the inconsistency of her service, which almost handed Sawamatsu the match in the final set.

After a slightly desultory start, with Williams taking the first set in 37 minutes, the setting for an epic struggle was created when Sawamatsu jumped into a 3-0 lead in the second. Dark patches began to appear on Williams's pewter coloured outfit as she was pulled around the court. Sawamatsu had suddenly found her touch and range. "She started getting all the balls back and making a lot less errors," Williams said later.

The 24 year old Japanese woman, whose mother and aunt lost a Wimbledon doubles quarter final to King and Casals in 1979, is no stranger to marathons. Earlier this year she yielded a Fed Cup match to Nathalie Tauziat in a final set that ended 17-15. Now, as she won the second set in a brusque tie break and sped to a 3-1 lead in the third, it looked as though her persistence would prevail.

But this was no war of attrition. Both women attacked constantly, refusing to be discouraged by errors, and the rare examples of safety play were usually punished.

Williams fought back, serving for the match at 5-4. Then, momentarily, she wobbled. Two double faults and a rash of weak second serves left her vulnerable, but although Sawamatsu took advantage, the effort seemed to drain her. Williams broke back on a series of errors from the other side of the net before steadying her own service sufficiently to take the victory.

Half an hour later she was facing a press conference, talking about her education, her first trip to Paris, and her parents. Her mother was with her, she said. Her father had stayed at home in Florida. "He said he wasn't going to start a second career as a parent in the stands, his head going this way and that way watching the ball."

Do you, someone asked, have any relationship with the goddess Venus? "How did you guess?" she replied, with a sassy toss of the white beads.

For Wimbledon, she announced, they will be purple and green. Look out.

Meanwhile, Pete Sampras showed no signs of the thigh muscle he strained last week during his 6-3, 7-5, 6-1 win over Frenchman Fabrice Santoro.

Mary Pierce teetered a little against the 20 year old Russian Tatiana Panova, while Thomas Muster, the champion in 1995, was taken to a fifth set (and trailed in it 4-2) against Germany's Marc Kevin Goellner before the status quo was preserved.

The one seed to fall was Spain's Alberto Berasategui, a finalist three years ago, who pulled out in the fifth set against Andrei Medvedev of the Ukraine with severe cramp. Otherwise it was pain free opening day.