by Lisa-Marie Burrows
Serena Williams may have declared herself more of a ‘night owl’ after her late finish during her first round match, but today, she was equally swift in victory as she recorded her 500th career win on Rod Laver Arena, against Barbora Zahlavova Strycova 6-0 6-4 in a swift 68 minutes.
Williams was on fire in the opening set and played with superiority in the blazing sun to take her on the next stage of her Grand Slam journey – to claim the title for a sixth time. The former world No.1 was in cruise control at the start of the match and dropped only nine points in 22 minutes, winning 86 percent of her first service points, preventing Zahlavova Strycova with very few opportunities to attack her second serve.
The five-time winner of the Australian Open, found the competition level elevated as the world No. 49 settled into the match and found her range. The rallies intensified and she began to move the American around the court and even wrong-footed Williams, resulting in her falling awkwardly. Fortunately, the fall was not serious and play resumed as normal.
The 12th seed had the opportunity to serve for the match at 5-3 in the second set, but her victory was delayed as Zahlavova Strycova broke her serve in hope of extending the competition.
Williams was untroubled by the momentary lapse and closed out the match by breaking the Czech at 5-4 after unleashing her power ball game to hit a short ball with a backhand down-the-line winner.
The American will now meet Greta Arn of Hungary in the third round after she was the successful winner of a long dual against the No.17 seed, Dominika Cibulkova in three, tough sets, 6-2, 3-6, 10-8.
Maria Sharapova, another former Australian Open champion, was equally as impressive in her second round encounter against American, Jamie Hampton, in a straight sets 6-0, 6-1 victory, whilst Wimbledon champion, Petra Kvitova, experienced a trickier contest. The Czech faced Carla Suarez Navarro in the second round and took three sets to dispatch of the Spaniard 6-2, 2-6, 6-4.
Crowd favourite Australian Jelena Dokic, was ousted in straight sets by 9th seed Marion Bartoli of France 6-3, 6-2 in her second round match on the Rod Laver Arena, as Ana Ivanovic continued her Australian Open campaign on Hisense Arena with ease after defeating Michaella Krajicek of the Netherlands 6-2, 6-3.
Russians, 7th seed Vera Zvonareva and 18th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, progressed into the third round after their defeats over Lucie Hradecka and Sloane Stephens respectively, whilst compatriot and 29th seed Nadia Petrova fell short to Sara Errani of Italy, 2-6, 2-6.
Lisa-Marie Burrows is a qualified LTA Community Tennis Coach from England and a trainee sports journalist, in the final stages of completion of her course, enabling her to put her passion and enthusiasm for tennis into words and write articles about the events on the WTA and ATP Tours. She has taken great pleasure in traveling across Europe to watch tennis and cover the events, most recently the Davis Cup tie between Spain and France and the Valencia Open 500 tournament. Lisa-Marie is a member of the International Press Association and a contributing journalist for its online magazine, IMPress. She has contributed articles for various leading websites including www.tennisscoop.co.uk,www.olympictennis.net and most recently for www.tennisgrandstand,com andwww.worldtennismagazine.com. Lisa-Marie operates her tennis website called Tennis News and Views where you can read her reports and updates for the latest tennis information and keep up to date with the news on Twitter @TennisNewsViews.