by Ron Wall
ATHENS, Aug 15 (AFP) - American stars Venus Williams and Andy Roddick got the Olympic tennis show on the road Sunday with a classy act which was seen by only a sprinkling of spectators.
Tennis, recalled to the Games in 1988, might claim to be a fully-established Olympic sport but the dire stories of more than half the tickets going unsold appeared to be confirmed, at least on the first day.
But US Open champion Roddick was unconcerned.
"People see tennis a lot. It was perhaps a choice between tennis and swimming but I wasn't too concerned, I was just concentrating on wining the match," he said.
Defending champion Williams, who had not played since spraining her wrist in Los Angeles three weeks ago, swept past Melinda Czink of Hungary in 57 minutes although Roddick found Flavio Saretta a surprisingly stubborn first round opponent.
The 81st ranked Brazilian, watched by compatriot and triple French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten, kept Roddick on court 1hr 22 minutes in a baseline battle that finished 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) in the American's favour.
"I always said you have to take every opponent seriously and he rose to the occasion and gave me a good fight," said Roddick who is seeded to play Roger Federer for the gold medal in a rematch of the Wimbledon final the Swiss won.
He said he would put a gold medal on a par with a Grand Slam tournament and admitted he had found the event a little more intimidating than he expected.
"I was definitely a little more nervous than I usually am for a first round match," he added.
Roddick next plays Sydney Olympic silver medallist Tommy Haas of Germany or Croatia's Mario Ancic.
Another player overcome with stagefright was Ai Sugiyama of Japan. Seventy unforced errors saw the eighth seed fighting back from a set down to beat China's Zheng Jie 4-6, 6-3, 8-6.
Williams, who has slipped to 12th in the world since winning the US Open and Wimbledon titles in succession in 2000 and 2001 and missing the latter half of 2003 with an abdominal injury, won 6-1, 6-2.
The Hungarian left-hander, ranked 103 in the world, rarely troubled the American who celebrated as if she had won Wimbledon.
"I was just so excited," she said. "You don't always get to enjoy your match."
She appeared a little rusty but always confident and early in the match she chatted to the chair umpire about a line call.
"I just wanted to remind her I hit close to the lines and she needed to expect that," she said. "I know when my balls are in or out."
But she would not reveal why exactly she had a strapping on her left knee.
"There are various issues. I don't want to go into that."
The American, who appeared to have sewn together a string of teacloths for her latest body-clinging outfit, now plays Japan's Saori Obata or Slovenia's Maja Matevzic in the second round.
But Williams did hit 32 unforced errors which might have led to more problems against a higher-ranked player.
Williams hurt her wrist when she reached down to tie her shoelaces in the Los Angeles tournament semi-finals against Lindsay Davenport, who decided against playing in Athens.
Williams was scheduled to meet world No 1 Justine Henin-Hardenne in the quarter-finals if the Belgian can successfuly return after an 11-week break because of a virus.
Henin-Hardenne, who was playing world No 66 Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic later on Sunday, won the French Open and US Open in 2003 and the Australian Open at the start of this year, but she didn't play for six weeks prior to the French Open because of a virus.
And at Roland Garros at the end of May she was surprisingly beaten in the second round by Tathiana Garbin of Italy. That was her last match.
Serena Williams, Jennifer Capriati and Kim Clijsters all withdrew from the Olympic tournament with injuries.
And Williams, who said it was "absolutely supepr strange" being here without her younger sister, said Serena was disappointed at missing the Olympics.
"She's pretty upset so I dont talk to her about the Olympics," she said.