Beaten in her first match in Los Angeles two weeks ago, the American former world number one looked much more like her old self as she clinched victory in just over an hour.
"That was a lot better than my first match back," Davenport told reporters.
"When I first started practising again, almost six weeks ago exactly, this was always my target tournament, when I would be 100 percent.
"Two weeks ago, I was having real trouble reacting to serves but today was much better, that was where I thought the most improvement was."
The defending champion and seventh seed hit seven aces and though she got a bit tight when serving for the match, she held on to set up a meeting with Italian Francesca Schiavone.
Davenport, who was off the Tour for just under five months because of her back injury, has been critical of the WTA, the ruling body of the women's Tour, for not granting
"It's a really long story," Davenport said.
"I was trying to play most of the summer but the Tour wouldn't allow me too. In April, they wanted me to sign up to 10 or 11 tournaments and I couldn't do that as I didn't want to pull out of tournaments.
"But they said I had to do that and I wasn't going to do that. They would use me to market tournaments and then I would look like the bad guy for pulling out.
"Pulling out of tournaments is the biggest problem we have. There are tournaments where players are never going to play in (but are marketed) and the Tour knows that. I am right in my principle and I stand by that."
Now that she is back, though, Davenport said she was sure of being able to get back to her best eventually.
"I'm not expecting miracles to happen this week in New Haven," she said.
"I still feel I can play well. I don't know if it will be next week at the Open, or next week when it all comes together but I know I can still play good tennis."