In the first round of the Mutua Madrid Open on Monday, ninth seed Serena Williams faced the weekend’s Budapest runner-up Elena Vesnina and routinely eliminated her with a 6-3 6-1 victory which included 14 aces and 40 winners to her opponent's one ace and four winners.

Vesnina won just three points on Serena’s first serve and even on Serena’s second serve the performance was not better, just four points. Moreover, she hit six doubles faults and had a second serve winning percentage of just 26%.

Whether the blue clay is "ridiculous" or not, as Serena called the Madrid's new surface, the American experienced no troubles in her first match at the tournament. Most impressively, leading 4-1 in the second set she hit four aces to win the game! Williams is now 8-0 on clay in 2012.

In the second round Serena will face another Russian, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, while Caroline Wozniacki and Maria Sharapova are possible later opponents. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)

Top seed Victoria Azarenka kicked off her Mutua Madrid Open campaign with a 7-6(5) 6-4 victory over claycourt specialist Svetlana Kuznetsova who entered the first round match with a 4-2 head-to-head record against the world No.1. Kuznetsova is a very intimidating opponent for an opener, but Azarenka, defeated only two times this season, took the first set in a tiebreak, then the players exchanged breaks in the beginning of the second set, and in the end Azarenka prevented another tiebreak by breaking Kuznetsova for the victory.

Fresh off her high-profile win on Stuttgart clay, second seed Maria Sharapova needed an hour and a minute to win her first encounter with Irina-Camelia Begu 6-0 6-3. It took Sharapova just 21 minutes to win the first set, while in the closer second set a break in the sixth game was enough for her to ensure victory.

Sixth seed Caroline Wozniacki is also through, but after more than three hours of battling against Ksenia Pervak. Final score: 7-6(7) 3-6 6-4. (photo: sr_cranks)

The blue Madrid Open was already heating up while the week’s touraments were coming to a close – Kaia Kanepi saved two match points in the Estoril Open final before defeating Carla Suarez Navarro 3-6 7-6(6) 6-4, and Sara Errani beat Elena Vesnina 7-5 6-4 for the Budapest crown.

After the Australian part of the season, during which Kanepi won the Brisbane International, the Estonian was on the sidelines with a right shoulder injury for a month and a half and only now did she get back into the rhythm in Estoril, where as the sixth seed, she took out seed No.4 Petra Cetkovska and top seed Roberta Vinci en route to the final with unseeded Suarez Navarro, who was close to winning her first WTA title when leading 6-3 5-3 and then having two match points in the tiebreak. Even in the third set Suarez Navarro had a lead, 4-2, but Kanepi worked her way back again to win the most intriguing final of her life.

In Budapest, Sara Errani earned her third straight claycourt title and 15th consecutive match win by beating Elena Vesnina, who considerably assisted Errani’s cruise through the tournament by eliminating seeds No.2, No.6 and No.5, namely, Ksenia Pervak, Petra Martic and Marina Erakovic. In the title match, Vesnina was up 5-3 in the first set, but Errani then won seven games in a row and not long after the match. (via WTA Tour, photos: Neal Trousdale)

The new blue-colored clay in Madrid didn't receive a warm welcome in the tennis world and on the WTA side fifth-ranked Samantha Stosur criticized it the most referring to it as "pointless", while Serena Williams called it "ridiculous". Maria Sharapova simply uttered "unique". However, players have gathered for the tournament and on Twitter we can see that there are many positive reactions. Let's see what those with positive attitude are saying:

Kuznetsova also showed where all the clay stays: Read more »

A couple of days ago Caroline Wozniacki tweeted a cute photo of herself when she was just two years old, commenting how already at such a young age she liked fast cars. I have to say I wouldn't recognize her, she looked like a lot of blond kids at that age. However, from the age of 10 or so, she hasn't changed much. Check out this photo. And this video of a 13-year-old Wozniacki.

Tony, thank you for adding another photo to my Childhood Pics series!