Sania Mirza broke her French Open drought with a crushing victory over Alberta Brianti of Italy in the first round at Roland Garros on Wednesday.
The Indian ace, who had never gone beyond the first round in two previous attempts, peppered the 87-ranked Italian with her hard-hitting groundstrokes to score a 6-1, 6-1 victory in under an hour.
Sania returned to the tour last month after a two-and-a-half month injury lay-off and failed to go past the first round in singles in both her warm-up events, in Morocco and Istanbul.
On Wednesday, she didn't let the Parisian clay demoralise her. She served well and once she had taken a 3-0 lead in the first set, she maintained the momentum and never let up the pressure from her forehands against an error-prone opponent.
But the real test awaits the 20-year-old when she clashes with number seven seed Ana Ivanovic of Serbia in the second round.
Ivanovic, who made it to the quarter-final in 2005, beat Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden 6-2, 6-0 in her first round match.