Paris, France (SportsNetwork. cheap jerseys china .com) - Serena Williams highlighted Sundays winners in the first round of the French Open. The world No. 1 Williams began her title defense at Roland Garros with a 6-2, 6-1 win over French wild card Alize Lim on Court Chatrier. Williams was erratic at times, piling up 36 unforced errors, but the 17-time Grand Slam singles champion saved all seven break points she faced and fired 37 winners to just seven for Lim, who was making her debut in the main draw of a major. "I was a little nervous, as I always am in my first rounds. Its kind of always hard for me to shake those nerves," Williams said. The American beat Maria Sharapova last year to capture her second career French Open crown. She also won this clay-court tournament in 2002, beating older sister Venus in the final. Another former champion, Italian Francesca Schiavone, was ousted on Day 1, losing 6-3, 6-3 to Croatias Ajla Tomljanovic. Schiavone won the French Open title in 2010 and was the runner-up to Li Na the next year. Third-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland advanced, defeating Chinas Shuai Zhang 6-3, 6-0 on the red clay at Stade Roland Garros. Radwanskas best result at the French Open was a spot in the quarterfinals last year. Venus, an owner of seven Grand Slam singles titles, moved into the second round after posting a 6-4, 6-1 win over 17-year-old Swiss Belinda Bencic. The 29th-seeded Venus played her 58th career match at Roland Garros, the most among active players. Other seeded winners included No. 8 Angelique Kerber of Germany, No. 14 Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain and No. 31 Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia. Romanian Monica Niculescu rallied to beat 25th-seeded Estonian Kaia Kanepi 5-7, 6-3, 6-1. American Varvara Lepchenko, Austrian Yvonne Meusburger, French wild card Claire Feuerstein, Slovakian Anna Schmiedlova, Spaniard Garbine Muguruza, Swede Johanna Larsson and Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova also moved into the second round. cheap china jerseys . Almost 18 months after Armstrongs seven Tour wins were wiped from the record, an independent panel created by the new International Cycling Union leadership has begun work to discover the extent of the sports past problems. cheap jerseys ." The announcement from Rutgers President Robert Barchi, who said there was a "miscommunication" about the speeches, is the latest development in a strange saga surrounding the May 18 ceremony. The New Jersey university initially announced that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would give the keynote address, and school officials maintained that she would not be "disinvited" as some students and faculty protested her selection, including holding a sit-in last week.PRETORIA, South Africa - The chief defence lawyer in Oscar Pistorius murder trial sought on Wednesday to undermine the prosecution testimony of a couple who say they heard a womans screams and gunfire the night the athlete fatally shot his girlfriend. Lawyer Barry Roux said telephone records will show that the banging sounds the neighbours heard were instead a distressed Pistorius hitting a toilet door with a cricket bat to get to fatally wounded girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Charl Johnson and his wife Michelle Burger have testified to hearing a sequence of events in the pre-dawn hours of Valentines Day last year that involved a woman screaming, a man shouting for help and then the sound of gunshots. Cross-examining Johnson on the third day of the blockbuster trial, Roux says call records will show Pistorius called an estate manager at around 3:19 a.m. and soon after he bashed in the door with the bat. In Johnson and Burgers testimony, they say they heard what they described as shots straight after making a call to security at 3.16 a.m. The similar times show the sounds were the bat on the door, Roux argued. "There is only one thing you could have heard, because it coincides precisely," Roux said to Johnson. "That was the time that he (Pistorius) broke down the door (with the bat)." Johnson replied, addressing the judge: "My lady, I am convinced the sound I heard was gunshots." "I understand," Roux said in the exchange, suggesting Johnson had convinced himself they were shots. Throwing doubt on the witnesses recollection of the sequence is crucial for Pistorius defence after the state maintained there was a loud argument on the night he shot Steenkamp through a door in his bathroom and screams and shouts before a gun was fired. Pistorius team wants to show the screams were Pistorius calling for help after the accidental shots. After a break, prosecutor Gerrie Nel asked for permission to stand down Johnson until Thursday to get more records. The judge agreed and the case moved on to its fourth witness. Pistorius, 27, has said he shot 29-year-old Steenkamp by accident, fearing she was a dangerous intruder in his home. The case has transfixed people around the world, and the proceedings are being broadcast on television, adding to the scrutiny of South Africas criminal justice system as well as the character of a globally admired athlete whose career peaked when he ran in the 2012 Olympics. Pistorius was born without fibula bones because of a conngenital defect and his legs were amputated when he was 11 months old. cheap nfl jerseys. He has run on carbon-fiber blades and was initially banned from competing against able-bodied peers because many argued that his blades gave him an unfair advantage. He was later cleared to compete. He is a multiple Paralympic medallist but he failed to win a medal at the London Olympics. Lawyer Roux earlier attacked the testimonies of Johnson and Burger by also saying similarities in their accounts indicated that they had aligned their versions at the expense of truth. In his testimony Johnson told the court in Pretoria, the South African capital, that he heard the cries of a terrified woman and shooting around the time that Pistorius killed Steenkamp. Johnsons wife, Burger, had given similar testimony and at one point broke down in tears because of what she said was the memory of the terrified screams of a woman. Roux said there were differences between the statements that Johnson and Burger had given to police after the shooting, and testimony that they gave in court. Both the statements and the testimony shared similarities, Roux said, implying that the couple had contaminated their evidence by talking through what they were going to say. "You could just as well have stood together in the witness box," Roux said. "What do you say to that?" The tart assertion drew a caution from Judge Thokozile Masipa, who told Roux he had gone too far. Roux contended that crucial elements in the testimony of the couple were missing in their earlier comments to police, including the statements that they heard a womans screams rising in anxiety and intensity and that they heard the womans voice "fading" after the last in a volley of gunshots. Johnson suggested that he and his wife were more expressive while testifying in court than when providing information for a police document. "I would venture a guess that its the way you verbally tell the story," he said. "Theres a lot more emotion involved ... whereas the statement is more factual." At the beginning of proceedings on Wednesday, prosecutor Nel said Johnsons telephone number had been read out in court a day earlier. Johnson then said he had since received a "large amount" of missed calls. He described one voicemail message as saying: "Why are you lying in court? You know Oscar didnt kill Reeva. Its not cool." ___ Gerald Imray is on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GeraldImrayAP wholesale nfl jerseyscheap jerseys from china ' ' '
