PARIS - American Venus Williams declared that she could be a danger to the top seeds at Roland Garros after breezing into the second round Monday as rain played havoc on the second straight day of the year's second Grand Slam on Monday.

Maintenance workers remove water from the court during the French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris May 28, 2007. [Reuters]

Williams, seeded 26th in the event, was never troubled in defeating 17-year-old French wildcard Alize Cornet 6-4, 6-3 in a match that started three hours late due to rain and ended just before another wet system rolled into Paris.

World No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko was the only men's player to book his place in the Roland Garros second round the same day, as torrential rain forced organisers to abandon most of the schedule early and halted the ongoing matches.

"I want to play quick and have more breaks because of the coming rain," he said.

The fourth-seeded Russian, who was scheduled to play first match on Court One at 11am local time, was also forced to endure a three-hour rain delay before he was able to complete a 6-3, 6-1, 6-1 victory over Stefano Galvani of Italy.

The 25-year-old Davydenko, who has reached two career Grand Slam semifinals at 2005 Roland Garros and the 2006 US Open, converted seven of 11 break point opportunities in the match and improves to 24-14 this year.

Only four men's singles matches -- and 14 overall at the championships -- have been completed at the showpiece clay event thus far.

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