Star attraction Venus Williams pronounced herself well satisfied with her first outing of the new tennis season after winning in the opening round of the ASB Classic in Auckland.

The former world No.1 and seven-time grand slam singles champion ground out a 6-3 7-6 (7-1) result over Czech wildcard Andrea Hlavackova in 1hr 38min on Monday night.

Williams says it’s always hard to know exactly how the first match of a season will go.

“You just know you have to fight and try hard and that’s what I did,” she said.

“I’m looking forward to putting even more better points together with each game, but I think it was a great first match to be able to play so many balls and play a tough opponent.”

Williams showed touches of her class, but also struggled at times for consistency against an opponent ranked almost 90 places below her.

Two breaks to one gave the American, whose serve often hit the high 190s km/h, the opening set.

Hlavackova hung in the contest in the second set, and a break gave her a 5-3 lead, but she couldn’t convert her advantage.

Williams went on to close out the match in style.

Serving with the set score at 5-6, she strung together eight points in a row to tilt the encounter firmly in her favour.

“Once I got to the tiebreak, I thought I was just going to go for it, try to take control,” she said.

“I think that was the most control I had in the match.”

Williams will next meet unseeded Austrian Yvonne Meusburger, who put out the first seed to fall in the tournament.

Meusburger took just over an hour to post a 6-4 6-3 victory over German seventh seed Mona Barthel, who was a semi-finalist in last summer’s Classic.

Williams and Meusburger, who haven’t faced each other before, are similarly ranked, with the former two places higher at 47.

Only one other seed was in action on day one, and fifth-seeded American Jamie Hampton survived early nerves to down Austrian wildcard Tamira Paszek 1-6 6-0 6-3.