Seeded second and two time winner in New York, Belgian Kim Clijsters opened her bid for the title defence at Flushing Meadows with a tough win over Hungarian Greta Arn.

Click here to revisit the tense moments of Clijsters-Arn tussle.

Clijsters opened the match on a bright note and continued to keep the momentum in her favour to reel off six games in a row. The onset of the second set brought a major shift in momentum when Clijsters lost both her serves to give Arn a formidable 4-0 lead. The Belgian star then regrouped herself and reeled off three games in a row to keep the set in her reach. Arn then held her serve for 5-3 after which Clijsters took the next four games to complete the 6-0, 7-5 win in 62 minutes of play.

Earlier in the day, American sweetheart Melanie Oudin made a perfect start to her title dream chase with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Ukrainian Olga Savchuk.

Meanwhile, French Open champion Francesca Schiavone overwhelmed Japan's Ayumi Morita 6-1, 6-0 to enter the second round of the year's last slam. She was joined by 16th seeded Israeli Shahar Peer, who overcame the challenge of Croatian Jelena Kostanic Tosic 6-4, 7-5.

Other winners of the day included Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Alisa Kleybanova, Alona Bondarenko, Petra Kvitova, Sally Peers, Sara Errani, Maria Elena Camerin, Gisela Dulko, Elena Baltacha and Elena Dementieva, the 2004 runner up, who took out Belarusian Olga Govortsova 6-1, 6-2 rather handily to move to the next round.