Nervous start to year for Henin

Wimbledon finalist Justine Henin made a nervous start to the defence of her Australian women's hardcourt championship on Tuesday.

The Belgian teenager was completely out of sorts in the opening set of her second round match with Daniela Hantuchova before fighting back to beat the Slovakian 1-6 6-0 6-3.

Henin won the event last year to kick start her best ever season as a professional tennis player but faces a difficult time retaining her title this year with Venus Williams, who beat her in the Wimbledon final, the tournament favourite.

"I am a little bit more nervous than I was last year because I had nothing to lose," Henin said.

"I think my game is okay and I can feel it in practice but I need matches to find confidence."

Williams, who is using the tournament as part of her preparations for the January 14-27 Australian Open, was scheduled to play her opening match on Wednesday against Switzerland's Patty Schnyder, the 1999 champion.

Henin, who won three titles in 2001 to finish the year ranked seventh in the world, said she was starting to feel the strain of being expected to win.

"I'm number seven and I was 50 last year. It is a lot for a young person," Henin said.

"I will need a little bit of time to understand this new player that I am."

Henin was joined in the third round at the Gold Coast's Royal Pines resort by Daja Bedanova after the seventh-seeded Czech defeated South Africa's Joannette Kruger 3-6 7-5 6-2.

The only real surprise on Tuesday was the defeat of American teenager Meghann Shaughnessy, the fourth seed bowing out 6-4 4-6 6-4 to Russia's Nadia Petrova.

In the final series of first round matches, Italian fifth-seed Silvia Farina-Elia beat Emile Loit of France 6-2 4-6 6-3 while South Korea's Cho Yoon-jeong defeated Irina Selyutina of Kazakhstan 6-2 6-4.