NEW YORK -- Too eager and much too wild, Venus Williams nearly turned her bid for a 20th straight match victory into a first-round debacle at the U.S. Open.

After winning eight consecutive games and taking a 6-3, 5-0 lead Monday against France's Anne-Gaelle Sidot, Williams suddenly look very ordinary, very vulnerable and not at all like a Wimbledon champion on the road to a second Grand Slam title.

	Martina Hingis defeated Venus Williams in last year's semifinal.

She sprayed her serves everywhere, ran her double-fault total to eight and watched Sidot reel off four straight games.

In the space of a few minutes, a romp turned into a tense confrontation. Then, just as quickly, Williams bore down and broke Sidot to close out a 6-3, 6-4 victory.

"I think I was rushing a lot in the match, and then I lost focus out there," Williams said. "I felt a little bit lazy on my serve. It seems when I'm in a big match I serve a lot better. When I'm in a match like this, I struggle."

Moments before the match, Pete Sampras was asked, as a connoisseur of serves, what he thought of Williams' serve.

"I don't think she knows where it's going, to be honest with you," he said. "She's a tall girl with a big racket, throws it up and hits it hard."

In this match, at least, Sampras couldn't have been more accurate.

Serena's busy day

Although defending U.S. Open women's champion Serena Williams wasn't scheduled to play on the opening day of the year's final Grand Slam tournament, she was still busy. She began Monday by talking to Matt Lauer on the Today Show on a temporary tennis court built outside the studio. Then she raced down to Wall Street where she rang the bell to open trading on the New York Stock Exchange. --Associated Press

Yet, Williams had more than her serve going for her against Sidot, who was reduced to shrieking in high-pitched frustration as she pounded error after error to let the match drift away before her brief comeback attempt.

In taking a 5-0 lead in the second set, Williams showed off all the speed and groundstroke power that enabled her to win four straight tournaments coming into the open.

The women's No. 1 seed and 1997 champion, Martina Hingis, looked somewhat listless in beating No. 101 Alina Jidkova 6-3, 6-1. However, she did not have as much difficulty as No. 9 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in a 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (2) victory over No. 63 Joannette Kruger, or No. 8 Nathalie Tauziat in beating Ludmila Cervanova 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.

No. 6 Monica Seles, a 6-0, 6-2 victor over Tracy Almeda-Singian, played a bit livelier. So, too, did No. 15 Jennifer Capriati, seeded at the open for the first time since 1993, beating Emmanuelle Gagliardi 6-4, 6-0.

"I think I've established my presence for good, hopefully," Capriati said. "People still say, `Glad to have you back.' It's not so much if I'm going to stay, but what am I going to do? It's just, I'm here. Yeah, I came back, seeded this year. It's definitely different. I like it better like this."

Capriati hardly seems to be a serious threat for the title in a field that includes Hingis, Venus and Serena Williams, and Lindsay Davenport, but she's moving in the right direction.

"Of course I have thoughts of winning it," she said. "I mean, that would be the ultimate for me. That is my goal, of course. I'm not going to be satisfied with winning a couple of rounds. I think I have a good chance so, of course, it's going to make my own expectations a little higher."

Lindsay Davenport begins her bid Tuesday to duplicate her 1998 U.S. Open title when she plays Spain's Gala Leon Garcia in Arthur Ashe Stadium. And fifth-seeded Serena Williams begins the defense of her title by taking on Slovenia's Tina Pisnik.

In the night session, No. 12 Anna Kournikova plays American Holly Parkinson.