A congenial Kim Clijsters walked alongside Maria Joao Koehler prior to their first-round match as if giving the 19-year-old Grand Slam debutante a guided tour of Rod Laver Arena's hallways. A chatty Clijsters led her opponent to the court and helped her hang around for a set before finding her range and showing Koehler the door, 7-5, 6-1.
The defending champion was playing just her fourth tournament since the 2011 French Open, and the rust was apparent in a scatter-shot opening set featuring periods of hit-and-miss tennis. The pair combined for 33 errors in an opening set in which they both showed flashes of shotmaking but seldom played well simultaneously. Clijsters struggled to pick up the spin of Koehler's lefty serve, wasn't as quick off the mark as she usually is, and didn't always anticipate the direction of Koehler's shots.
The 223rd-ranked Portuguese qualifier was playing her first main-draw match outside of her home country, and though she served just 35 percent, she lost only three points when she landed her first serve in the opening set. Koehler has a smooth, circular swing on her forehand, and she cracked that shot with spin and pace in comfortably holding her first five service games.
But when Clijsters crunched a cross-court backhand winner for a 6-5 advantage, reality set in for Koehler, who wore a wide, white headband reminiscent of Jana Novotna. Serving to send the set into a tiebreaker, Koehler quickly fell behind 0-30. Clijsters stabbed a backhand return that seemed to surprise Koehler, as she nudged a backhand approach deep to face triple set point. Spinning a double fault beyond the service line brought a timid end to a set controlled by the server—Clijsters converted the only break point of the 42-minute first set.
The Clijsters serve is the shot that can sometimes go awry under pressure, and given the strained abdominal she suffered last season, her ability to launch up and out into the serve bears watching in the early rounds. The 11th-seeded Belgian dumped seven double faults today, but Clijsters was increasingly sharper on serve as the match progressed, winning all 11 of her first-serve points in the second set. A Clijsters double fault gave Koehler her only break point of the match, but successive backhand errors gave Clijsters a 3-0 lead, and she never looked back.
It wasn't completely convincing, but after an injury-ravaged 2011 season, Clijsters looked both pleased and relieved to wrap up the win without any major aches and pains.
"My practices are 10 times harder than any situation I'll have in a match," Clijsters said before taking the court. "But, you know, it's the emotions that play a part into how you react in matches. I think that's something where your body just has to get used to that again."
Clijsters will face either Stephanie Foretz Gacon or Elena Baltacha in the second round, with a possible rematch of the 2011 final against Li Na looming in the fourth round.
—Richard Pagliaro