Sania Mirza [Images] broke her French Open drought with a crushing victory over Alberta Brianti of Italy in the first round at Roland Garros on Wednesday.

• Images from day four

The Indian ace, who had never gone beyond the first round in two previous attempts, peppered the 87-ranked Italian with her hard-hitting groundstrokes to score a 6-1, 6-1 victory in under an hour.

Sania returned to the tour last month after a two-and-a-half month injury lay-off and failed to go past the first round in singles in both her warm-up events, in Morocco and Istanbul.

On Wednesday, she didn't let the Parisian clay demoralise her. She served well and once she had taken a 3-0 lead in the first set, she maintained the momentum and never let up the pressure from her forehands against an error-prone opponent.

But the real test awaits the 20-year-old when she clashes with number seven seed Ana Ivanovic of Serbia in the second round.

Ivanovic, who made it to the quarter-final in 2005, beat Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden 6-2, 6-0 in her first round match.