Serena, in Hole, Plays Aces

With the help of a WTA tour trainer, Serena Williams stopped a painful blister on the ball of her left foot from popping.

Nothing, however, was going to keep Williams from bursting Jelena Jankovic’s bubble.

Forced to rally after dropping the first set in a tiebreaker, the top-seeded Williams took two hours and 18 minutes to complete a gritty, grueling 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-2 victory over the unseeded Jankovic in a second-round match of the Acura Classic on Tuesday at La Costa Resort and Spa.

“Everyone tends to play their toughest, and beyond themselves, against me. It just tends to be that way,” Williams said.

She put a stop to any lingering thoughts of an upset by Jankovic with consecutive ace serves, of 119 mph down the middle and 111 mph out wide, on the last two points of the match.

“I didn’t go for many big serves today, but I guess when I needed the big point, it came through,” said Williams, who finished with four aces that helped her compensate for her physical problems.

Jankovic had no such help.

The 19-year-old Serbian was the first to call for a trainer and a three-minute medical timeout, because of a stiff lower back that required stretching and a brief massage, after Williams converted on a triple break-point opportunity and took a 3-2 edge after the fifth game of the third set. But Williams took advantage of the break to rest and then follow suit with a medical timeout of her own in which she had her foot tended and wrapped in a bandage.

Jankovic -- ranked No. 49 in the world and playing for the first time against Williams, a six-time Grand Slam champion and former world No. 1 -- rebounded from 4-1 and 5-2 deficits to win the first set. But she was powerless to stop her opponent’s resolute comeback thereafter.

“She just hits the ball really, really hard, and I was like, ‘Whoa, is she going to hit like this all the time, or what?’ ” Jankovic said. “I just didn’t know what to expect. I watched her on TV so many times, but when you’re on the court, it’s a different story.”

Maria Sharapova, the 17-year-old reigning Wimbledon champion, began a post-Grand Slam chapter of her career with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over qualifier Lilia Osterloh.

“You know, I enjoyed every minute of it,” Sharapova said of her Wimbledon victory and the ensuing whirlwind tour of public appearances. “When you win something big and you achieve something, even though I was so tired, I enjoyed every minute of it. Of course, now you’ve got to forget about it, and move on and achieve many more things.”

Osterloh, who is ranked No. 225 in the world but upset No. 26 Maria Vento-Kabchi on Monday, was broken in the fourth game of the first set and the sixth-seeded Sharapova held serve the next game for a 4-1 advantage.

Sharapova, a fan favorite who played in front of a crowd of about 6,000 in the featured night match, broke Osterloh’s serve twice in a row for another 4-1 lead in the second set.

“I think I did pretty well for the first match, considering not playing for a while, and you know, coming off such a big win,” Sharapova said.

No. 3-seeded Anastasia Myskina, the French Open champion, shook off the rust of a three-week break from competition following Wimbledon to take a workmanlike 6-3, 6-4 victory over Barbara Schett of Austria.

“For a first match, it was pretty good. I’m just happy it was two sets,” Myskina said. “I’ve been practicing, but, you know, matches and practice is different. The routine is kind of missing when you’re not playing, like, three weeks in a row. She was more ready than me, but still, I want to play, and I’m really hungry.”

Another Russian, No. 12-seeded Vera Zvonareva, handled Maria Sanchez Lorenzo of Spain, 6-0, 6-3, but No. 10 Nadia Petrova was upset by fellow Russian Elena Likhovtseva, 6-4, 1-6, 6-4.