Venus Williams crushed world number one Jelena Jankovic in straight sets as she kept Team Americas on track to qualify for the final of the Hong Kong World Team Challenge Thursday.
The Wimbledon champion seized control early in the match and never let up, breaking twice in each set for a 6-2, 6-2 win.
The seven-time Grand Slam champion broke Jankovic in the first game of the match, racing into a 4-0 lead, unfurling a series of unanswerable ground strokes.
Williams, who trails Jankovic 4-5 in head-to-heads on the WTA tour, broke again in the third game of the second set and went on to seal the match with the help of another break.
"I had a good start. I think it put some pressure on her. I also wasn't giving her the errors I usually give to her, lots of errors," said Williams, who beat Jankovic in their last meeting at the season-ending WTA Tour Championships.
The world number six said she had a "great feeling" about the upcoming season and was going to use the knowledge she had gleaned from her last two tournaments in 2008, both of which she won.
Williams, looking to win her first Australian Open title, said she was not surprised to be off to such a strong start against a powerful opponent.
"I've always been a good player off the jump. That's always been the way I've played throughout my career," she said.
Jankovic said she had found her first singles match of the season tough.
"It was very hard to get into the match. I felt very slow on the court and didn't really get my rhythm out there," she said.
"But it's the first match of the season so I can't expect myself to play the best tennis, which is normal, so I look forward to playing as many matches as possible and trying to get in form because I haven't played a match for two months."
Jankovic is hoping to use the Hong Kong exhibition tournament to sharpen up ahead of a bid to win her first Grand Slam in Australia later this month.
Last year she reached the final of the US Open as well as the semi-finals of the Australian Open and the French Open but she has never won a major.
The result means Team Americas and Team Europe are locked at 1-1 going into Thursday's late singles match after Jankovic and Michelle Larcher de Brito beat Williams and Coco Vandeweghe in a doubles clash Wednesday.
The winner of the final singles clash between the Americas and Europe, featuring Gisela Dulko and Agnes Szavay, will face Russia in the gold group final of the JB Group Classic World Team Challenge, which runs until January 10.
Russia qualified for the final with singles wins Wednesday for Vera Zvonareva and Anna Chakvetadze over Asia-Pacific's Zheng Jie and Sania Mirza.
The tournament features four three-player teams representing Europe, Russia, the Americas and Asia-Pacific.
The semi-final losers will meet in the silver group final.
