Serena Williams wins Rio opener; 1st match since Wimbledon (Yahoo Sports)

Or maybe simply that Serena Williams hadn’t played a match in a month. Whatever the cause, Williams opened defense of her Olympic singles gold medal with a patchy-at-times 6-4, 6-2 victory over Australia’s Daria Gavrilova on Sunday, gesturing or yelling at herself as she often does when not all goes her way. Williams had not competed since collecting her Open-era record-tying 22nd Grand Slam title at Wimbledon.