Williams earns first win of season at National Bank Open

TORONTO — Serena Williams earned her first victory of the season Monday at the women's National Bank Open, defeating Nuria Parrizas-Diaz 6-3, 6-4.

It's just the second tournament of the season for Williams, who made her return to competition at Wimbledon just over a month ago.

The 23-time Grand Slam champion fell in the first round to Harmony Tan in three sets at the All England Club.

Before then, she last competed at the 2021 Wimbledon tournament, where she retired in the middle of her first match due to a torn hamstring suffered after slipping on the grass surface.

Williams will next play the winner between Belinda Bencic and Tereza Martincova.

The 40-year-old Williams started out strong, taking the first two games with relative ease.

Parrizas-Diaz tied it 2-2, but despite Williams' struggles at certain points, the 31-year-old Spaniard couldn't find enough of a consistent flow to get ahead.

Tied at 3-3 it Williams who found her rhythm, mixing solid touch with her signature power and putting shot after shot out of Parrizas-Diaz's reach.

Up 5-3, Williams had trouble landing set point, with he 57th-ranked Parrizas-Diaz fighting to send the game back to deuce.

But Parrizas-Diaz had trouble with Williams' serve, as the American scored on three of her four aces within that span. The last of them caused Parrizas-Diaz to hit a high arching shot that allowed Williams to fire one the opposite way, well out of her reach, to win the set 6-3.

In the second set, Parrizas-Diaz opened things up, taking the first game and then going up 2-1.

Williams then turned up the intensity level.

After taking away the Spaniard's advantage, Williams pulled out all the stops showing flashes of her old self, taking the advantage with a mix of touch