The Book On Serena

The USTA bills its US Open Series as the Greatest Road Trip in Sports and Serena Williams' path to the US Open has been a multi-media expressway taking her  in recent weeks.

Her memoir, On The Line, hits bookstores on Tuesday. She's pitched her jewelry line on the Home Shopping Network, threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium and has become an investor in the Miami Dolphins. But the reigning US Open champion returned to her stomping grounds in Arthur Ashe Stadium today and wasted little time strong-arming her way into the second round.

The second-seeded Williams converted five of seven break point chances in a 6-4, 6-1 win over American wild card Alexa Glatch.

It's been a decade since Williams beat Martina Hingis to win the 1999 US Open. Williams was seeded seventh in '99 and though she's the second seed and a pre-tournament favorite this year she's aiming to adopt the same aggressive approach she showed in her younger years.

"Ten years ago, I definitely wasn't a favorite," Williams said. "I felt like I had nothing to lose — I like that attitude. When you play with that attitude then you can go a really far way. That's kind of how I would like to approach it this year."

Attention to detail is part of that approach. Since winning Wimbledon, Williams has been dissatisfied with her first serve percentage. She connected on 64 percent of her first serves today then served up some product placement in the post-match press conference, replacing the standard Evian water with Gatorade (Williams endorses Gatorade).

The 11-time Grand Slam champion is playing for her third major title of the season after crushing Dinara Safina in the Australian Open final and dethroning older sister Venus in the Wimbledon final last month. 

Her book details the days of depression she endured after her older sister Yetunde was murdered not far from the Compton, California courts where the williams sisters learned to play tennis. That depression led Serena to distance herself from tennis for a while and she said today her book is both a memoir and motivational piece in detailing how she picked up the pieces of her shattered competitive psyche to reconstruct a productive career.

"That's another reason I wrote it, because I felt that what makes a champion isn't how well they do, it's about how well they can recover when they fall or if they fall," Williams said. "I love Muhammad Ali and he went to jail for a period of time and he came back on top of the world. I was on top of the world and then things came crashing down. You get to see people who are really your friends and you get to see people that really stick by your side and how you can recover from that and stay strong. I just think anyone can do it. You just have to have a guide sometimes and just getting there."