Aryna Sabalenka plays with a ferocity that you possibly won't see anywhere else in the ladies' singles this Fortnight, not even when Serena Williams is on the grass.

The Belarusian No.2 seed would be at the top of any list for aggression and devastating power, and her savage tennis helped her defeat a potentially awkward first-round opponent in Romania's Monica Niculescu, an unconventional qualifier with knee-high socks and a slice forehand.

There's a place in lawn tennis for Niculescu's delicate groundstrokes and clever spins, but ultimately this wasn't it, Sabalenka hitting 47 winners to progress 6-1, 6-4 in just over an hour and a quarter. With play delayed elsewhere because of rain, this meeting of modern power and old-school trickery under the roof of No.1 Court was the first match at the All England Club for two years.

But, after such a lengthy wait for tennis at Wimbledon, this didn't last long, and after a very lopsided first set it had seemed at one stage as though it wouldn't even stretch to an hour's play.

There was something forlorn about the way that Niculescu, ranked 191 in the world, attempted an underarm serve early in the second set, and then laughed to herself when the ball didn't make it over the net. But she did at least make that second set more competitive.

When you clump the ball as hard as Sabalenka does, and you seemingly consider margin to be dirty word, you are always going to play some wild shots as well, and she also hit 30 unforced errors.

There were big misses mixed in with the big winners. Nerves stopped her from moving as freely as she would have wanted to. But she was simply striking the ball too hard for Niculescu. "I'm really happy with this win. Monica is tough to play," Sabalenka said.

Fourth in the world rankings, Sabalenka was bumped up in the Wimbledon seedings after the withdrawals of Naomi Osaka and Simona Halep. But that status - her highest ever seeding at a major - doesn't come with a strong history of success on the grass, or elsewhere at the Grand Slams.

This was the first time for four years that Sabalenka had won a match at The Championships, after opening-round defeats in 2018 and 2019, the last of which had been against an opponent ranked outside the top 100.

Having avoided what would have been a third consecutive first round defeat at the All England Club, maybe this will be the tournament when she goes deep into a Grand Slam for the first time. Of all the top 20 seeds in the ladies' singles, Sabalenka is the only woman who is yet to make a Grand Slam quarter-final.

At 0-5 down in the opening set, Niculescu changed her footwear. But a new pair of shoes wasn't going to change the feel and momentum of this match. This was a match played on Sabalenka's terms.