Third seed Agnieszka Radwanska set up an anticipated second-round clash with Venus Williams by dominating Bojana Jovanovski in her opening match at Roland Garros 2012. Unchallenged in the encounter with Jovanovski, Radwanska won a staggering 90% of points on her first serve, compared to her opponent's mere 37%. In all the other departments the Pole was also considerably better, only her first serve percentage was just 1% higher than Jovanovski's, 61% to Jovanovski's 60%. Final score: 6-1 6-0.

Venus is leading Agnieszka 5-2 in their career meetings, but their only meeting in 2012 the Pole won, in the quarterfinals of Miami. On clay they played only once, in Rome 2009, and Venus was victorious then. Also, Venus had a shaky start to this year's Roland Garros, toughing out a 4-6 6-1 6-3 victory over Argentine teenager Paula Ormaechea, ranked 120th.

Top seed and Radwanska's fiercest opponent this season, Victoria Azarenka, had to dig deep to overcome Alberta Brianti in the first round on Monday. (photos: Ralf Reinecke)

Victoria Azarenka is top seed at a Grand Slam for the first time in her career and she almost became the first women’s top seed to exit at that stage of Roland Garros. Despite notching up an early break in the match, Azarenka went on to find herself five points away from losing to 32-year-old veteran Alberta Brianti, trailing the Italian winner of one WTA title 6-7(6) 0-4, before taking 12 of the last 14 games to win 6-7(6) 6-4 6-2. The world No.1 piled up 60 unforced errors in the encounter, sending the ball anywhere but inside the lines. Azarenka's opponent in the second round will be world No.198 Dinah Pfizenmaier.

Seed No.30 Mona Barthel became the first seed to fall out of Roland Garros 2012 by suffering an upset to Lauren Davis, 6-1 6-1, in the first round on the second day. No.11 seed Vera Zvonareva has pulled out injured and is replaced by lucky loser Sesil Karatantcheva. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Remember how Maria Sharapova's former coach Michael Joyce recently criticized Caroline Wozniacki's tendency to let go of coaches too easily? Well, the Dane again has a new coach in her team, the 2002 Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson, and he will stick around at least through the US Open, while he's already been working with the Wozniacki camp for a few weeks.

Wozniacki's father explained that they have already set up a plan with Johansson and after Roland Garros Wozniacki will start training with him in Monaco. By the way, the 37-year-old Johansson has another job, as well as a family.

Just like Joyce pointed out in his criticism that Wozniacki needs to give her coaches more time to prove themselves, Johansson said: "We must give it some time. One doesn't make no miracles in such a short time." (source: Tennis.com, photo: © Neal Trousdale)

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Will it be red hot Maria Sharapova or Serena Williams? Once clumsy on clay, Sharapova is now a definite favorite for the Roland Garros trophy. With Stuttgart and Rome titles this season, Sharapova has raised her record in clay finals to 5-0 and she's 11-0 on dirt this season. Also, four of her last five titles have come on clay. The 2002 French Open champion Serena is on a 17-match winning streak on clay, the second best clay streak this century, and even though she withdrew in the semifinals of Rome, she's expected to be healthy for Roland Garros. Just like Sharapova, Serena won two titles on clay this year, in Charleston and Madrid.

World number one Victoria Azarenka has had a stellar season, with a 35-3 win-loss record, four titles, including her first Grand Slam at the Australian Open, and two finals in eight tournaments she played in 2012. As for the clay season, she played the finals of Stuttgart and Madrid and beat three former French Open champions on the way (Svetlana Kuznetsova, Ana Ivanovic and Li Na) before losing to the hottest players of the moment, to Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Azarenka then withdrew from Rome after comfortably winning her opener, saying that she didn't even want to enter the tournament in the first place, but was forced by the pressure of WTA rules. This will be the first time Azarenka is top seed at a Grand Slam. Read more »

Have you been wondering about Agnes Szavay? The former world No.13 won back-to-back WTA titles in 2010 (Prague and Budapest), and after the Seoul semifinal in September that year, the Hungarian’s results plunged. Her 2011 was very much affected by illness and back injury, she played only six tournaments where she recorded a total of just four wins. Her last match in 2011 was at Roland Garros, in May.

Szavay’s current ranking has four digits – 1115! In 2012 she finally returned to play, at the Stuttgart qualifying on clay, her favorite surface. She lost her first match 7-6(4) 6-3 to Yvonne Meusburger and even though prior to the tournament she had had great plans of competing in Budapest, Madrid, Roland Garros, and the Olympics, her wishes have faced a setback.

Here’s what Szavay said on her Facebook on April 28, after Stuttgart:

I’m happy to be playing again, and it’s great to be back on court. A lot of people were asking me how I was, what I’ve been doing and it was nice to be around the players again. Playing matches is completely different than practice, and of course my back reacts differently, and it got a little stiff already in the first set. Unfortunately it’s not perfect yet, so I’ve decided to withdraw from Madrid. I’ll be focusing on Roland Garros and I hope to be there.

Now we know that even Roland Garros is out of option. The next tournament at which we can expect to see Szavay is Bastad in mid-July. Read more »