Top seed Caroline Wozniacki and former champion Maria Sharapova both raced into round two with straight-sets wins.
World number one defeats Parra Santonja in under an hour
Top seed Caroline Wozniacki and former champion Maria Sharapova both enjoyed straightforward victories in the first round at Wimbledon.
Wozniacki needed just 59 minutes to claim a 6-2 6-1 win over Arantxa Parra Santonja on a subdued Court One.
She did not make the ideal start, however, as windy conditions contributed to successive breaks of serve in the first two games of the match.
The momentum continued to swing between the pair when Wozniacki broke once more in the fourth game and then almost dropped her own serve in the fifth.
Parra Santonja's game was being blighted by unforced errors, though, and she was never really able to test Wozniacki's questionable pedigree on grass.
The Dane's crosscourt forehands were also causing damage as Parra Santonja could offer only token resistance.
After closing out the first set, Wozniacki took a firm grip of the match in the second, moving into the net to secure an early break.
Parra Santonja did show some fight in the sixth game but it only delayed the inevitable, as Wozniacki completed victory by serving out for the match.
One sided
Later in the day, Sharapova recorded a 6-2 6-1 success over fellow Russian Anna Chakvetadze in a match that was moved to Centre Court.
Chakvetadze, once as high as fifth in the world rankings, struggled to cope with her opponent's powerful groundstrokes - Sharapova hitting 24 winners compared to her six.
Sharapova, the champion at SW19 as a 17-year-old in 2004, broke twice on the way to taking the opening set.
And her dominance continued with four more breaks of the Chakvetadze delivery before the result was sealed in 68 minutes.
Sharapova advances to a possible second-round meeting with British wildcard Laura Robson, who takes on Germany's Angelique Kerber in her first-round match on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, French Open champion Li Na started her bid for back-to-back majors with a 6-3 6-3 win against Russian Alla Kudryavtseva.
And ninth seed Marion Bartoli, a winner at Eastbourne last week, opened her campaign with a 6-0 6-2 triumph over Kristyna Pliskova of the Czech Republic.
