BEIJING  – The Williams sisters cruised into the second round of the Olympic Games tennis singles on Monday, while Indian hope Sania Mirza was forced to retire hurt.
Number four seed Serena, the eight-time Grand Slam champion and a doubles gold medallist from Sydney in 2000 with sister Venus, but making her Olympic singles debut after missing Athens with a knee injury, beat Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-3, 6-1.

The match was held over from Sunday at 2-1 in the second set when rain had forced all play to be cancelled.
Resuming on centre court on Monday, the American didn’t hang around, breaking the Belarussian twice and holding serve to see out the second set 6-1.
Williams admitted that there had been butterflies before she took to the court with Govortsova.
“I was a little nervous going out there yesterday because, you know, it’s the first time you played singles at the Olympics,” she said.
“Obviously I wanted to win and I wanted to do well.
“It’s a great thing going out there playing for your country. It’s cool. You get to play and see all these other athletes. You think about it, it’s like, my God, it’s the Olympics.”
Her seventh-seeded sister Venus, with five Wimbledon titles among her seven Grand Slam crowns, weathered a spirited display from Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky before prevailing 6-3, 6-2.
“That was my first match since the Wimbledon doubles final,” she said. “I was really pleased: not a lot of unforced errors, no service breaks for me.”