Serena sees off Stojanovic to sweep into third round of Australian Open
Advances to Oz Open 3rd round; Djoker on a roll
Melbourne, Feb. 10: Serena Williams strolled into the third round of the Australian Open on Wednesday but former US Open champion Bianca Andreescu’s emotional comeback from 15 months out ended at the hands of Taiwanese veteran Hsieh Su-wei.
Williams, 39, continued her quest to equal Margaret Court’s all-time mark of 24 Grand Slams with a 6-3, 6-0 romp past 99th-ranked Serbian Nina Stojanovic in just 69 minutes on Rod Laver Arena.
“l wasn’t thinking as much in the second (set), as I was in the first,” said Williams, who hit 27 winners in her 101st Australian Open match while again sporting her unique, one-legged catsuit inspired by track legend ‘Flo-Jo’.
But eighth seed Andreescu, playing her first tournament since October 2019 after a serious knee injury, could never cope with Hsieh’s quirky range of shots and lost 6-3, 6-2 in one hour 23 minutes.
Kvitova, the former Wimbledon champion and Melbourne runner-up in 2019, committed 44 unforced errors in her 6-4, 1-6, 6-1 defeat to Romania’s Sorana Cirstea.
But seventh seed Aryna Sabalenka was little troubled in going through 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 against Russia’s Daria Kasatkina.
In the men’s draw, eighth seed Diego Schwartzmann of Argentina wasted little time in reaching the last 32, brushing aside Frenchman Alexandre Muller 6-2, 6-0, 6-3 in an hour and 32 minutes on 1573 Arena.
Later Novak Djokovic will look to continue his Melbourne Park “love affair” and march towards a record-extending ninth title against young American Frances Tiafoe.
Djokovic demolished France’s Jeremy Chardy 6-3, 6-1, 6-2 on Monday as the year’s first Grand Slam kicked off three weeks late because of the Coronavirus pandemic.
US Open champion Naomi Osaka will headline the evening session against France’s former world number four Caroline Garcia, with the Japanese star seeking her second Australian Open title in three years.
Germany’s volatile US Open finalist Alexander Zverev will close out the night session against America’s Maxime Cressy.
The fifth seed is known for a short fuse and it showed on Monday as he smashed a racquet during a 6-7 (8/10), 7-6 (7/5), 6-3, 62 win against another Marcos Giron.
The tantrum-prone Nick Kyrgios could also provide fireworks out on his favourite John Cain Arena against France’s 29th seed Ugo Humbert.
Austrian third seed Dominic Thiem, last year’s runner-up to Djokovic, is the highlight in the afternoon session on Margaret Court Arena against Germany’s 70thranked Dominik Koepfer.
Women’s second seed Simona Halep appeared to have overcome a lower back injury in 6-2, 6-1 romp past wildcard Lizette Cabrera on Monday and faces another
Australian, Ajla Tomljanovic, in the night session.
BOPANNA-BEN LOSE IN FIRST ROUND
India endured a second successive disappointing result at the Australian Open with Rohan Bopanna and Ben McLachlan bowing out after a close openinground defeat to Ji Sung Nam and Min-Kyu Song in
the men’s doubles event, here on Wednesday.
Bopanna and his Japanese partner lost 4-6 6-7(0) to the Korean wild card pair in one hour and 17 minutes.
Not having enough court time due to hard quarantine seemed to have an effect on Bopanna’s sharpness. McLachlan, on his part, struggled to negotiate volleys and that hurt them. —