VENUS BACK TO WINNING WAYS ON FRENCH OPEN DAY 1

Venus

Williams, who turns 37 next month, first competed in Paris in 1997 when she reached the second round in her Grand Slam debut. The 2002 finalist has also been to four quarterfinals at Roland Garros, the last coming in 2006.

Between reaching the semifinals of the 2010 US Open and the quarterfinals of the 2015 French Open, Williams did not advance past the fourth round at any major. But the seven-time Slam champion has found a new lease of life recently, making the last eight in three of the past six majors, including the quarters of the 2015 US Open, the semifinals of Wimbledon in 2016 and the final of the Australian Open in January.

Clay has historically been Williams' worst surface, and she has fewer wins (46) and more losses (19) at the French Open than at any other Grand Slam.

In other first-round action, Czech No. 15 seed Petra Kvitova defeated Julia Boserup, 6-3, 6-2, in Kvitova's first match back since she was injured in a knife attack in December

Christina McHale (USA) vs.Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS) [8]

Venus Williams (USA) [10] vs.Qiang Wang (CHN

Bethanie Mattek-Sands (USA) vs.Evgeniya Rodina (RUS)

Louisa Chirico (USA) vs.Jelena Ostapenko (LAT)

Amanda Anisimova (USA) vs.Kurumi Nara (JPN

Yuichi Sugita (JPN) vs.Steve Johnson (USA) [25

Madison Brengle (USA) vs.Julia Goerges (GER)

Mikhail Kukushkin (KAZ) vs.Tennys Sandgren (USA)

Marina Erakovic (NZL) vs.Shelby Rogers (USA)