Jankovic struggles through

Serbian third seed Jelena Jankovic was far from her best as she booked her place in the second round of the French Open.

Serb penalised a point for time-wasting

Serbian third seed Jelena Jankovic was far from her best as she booked her place in the second round of the French Open. Jankovic overcame a patchy performance to beat 'lucky loser' Monica Niculescu of Romania, eventually coming through 7-6 6-2. There were five breaks in the first eight games as neither player was able to find any consistency and Jankovic failed to serve out for the opening set. It headed into a tie-break and Jankovic finally grabbed the intitative. She raced into a 3-0 lead and from that point - with the aid of a net cord which had her smilingly kissing the net - she won the breaker 7-3. Jankovic broke serve again in the opening game of the second set but that advantage was also immeditaely surrendered. She was then given a point penalty fror time wasting. But that seemed to focus the mind of last year's beaten semi-finalist and after Jankovic broke serve again to lead 3-2, she swept through the next three games. Jankovic, 23, will play either Tathiana Garbin or Marina Erakovic next. She is regarded as one of the favourites for the title having won recently in Rome.