MASON, Ohio -- Serena Williams bounced back from the most lopsided loss of her career, cruising past Daria Gavrilova 6-1, 6-2 at the Western & Southern Open on Monday.
Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam winner and a former champion in Cincinnati, needed just 65 minutes to dispatch Gavrilova. She'll face eighth-seeded Petra Kvitova in Tuesday's second round.
Williams lost to Johanna Konta 6-1, 6-0 in San Jose, California, before withdrawing from last week's Rogers Cup in Montreal.
"You've got to be able to go back-to-back," said Williams, a two-time Cincinnati champion. "I don't get byes anymore right now. I'm OK with it."
In Monday's final match, unseeded Alize Cornet stunned 11th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko 1-6, 7-5, 6-0.
The first full day of main-draw competition opened with 13th-seeded Madison Keys holding off Bethanie Mattek-Sands 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4 to reach the second round. Wild-card Victoria Azarenka, a two-time Australian Open champion, also came from behind to beat Carla Suarez Navarro 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-4.
Tenth-seeded Julia Goerges was losing to Kristina Mladenovic 6-4, 3-2 when she retired because of a lower left leg injury. Advancing were Anett Kontaveit, Aryna Sabalenka, Lesia Tsurenko, wild-card Svetlana Kuznetsova and qualifiers Rebecca Peterson, Ajla Tomljanovic, Viktoria Kuzmova.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.