Serena easily advances; Andreescu ousted
MELBOURNE, Australia — Serena Williams is back in the Australian Open’s third round, where her stay in the Grand Slam tournament ended a year ago.
The owner of an Open era-record 23 major singles championships moved on by grabbing the last seven games to beat 99th-ranked Nina Stojanovic of Serbia 6-3, 6-0 in a little more than an hour.
Williams saved all three break points she faced, hit a half-dozen aces and compiled 27 winners.
The 39-year-old American has won the title in Australia seven times, but her third-round loss to Wang Qiang in 2020 was Williams’ earliest exit at Melbourne Park in 14 years.
This time, Williams will try to go further with a win against Anastasia Potapova, a 19-year-old Russian who was the junior champion at Wimbledon in 2016 and currently is ranked 101st.
Potapova has yet to win a tour-level title and will be making her debut in the third round at a major tournament.
Former U.S. Open champion Bianca Andreescu’s comeback from injury stalled when she became the latest top-10 player to be beaten by crafty veteran Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan.
Andreescu’s power was no match for Hsieh’s shotmaking in a second-round upset, 6-3, 6-2.
Andreescu beat Serena Williams in the final at the 2019 U.S. Open but sat out all of 2020 because of a knee injury. She said she felt rusty but healthy this week.
“I definitely have to get back in the groove of things,” said Andreescu, who was seeded eighth. “I don’t feel at my best on the court, for sure, but I’m super happy I’m finally back after being off for so long. It’s such an amazing feeling being back and doing what I love.”
Williams followed Andreescu onto the court at Rod Laver Arena and had only 11 unforced errors.
“I wasn’t thinking so much in the second set as I was in the first,”
Williams said. “I kind of just let go and see what happened.”
Andreescu, a 20-year-old Canadian, seemed befuddled by the 35-year-old Hsieh’s unorthodox game, which includes a two-handed forehand and an unpredictable mix of pace and placement.
“She can literally redirect any single ball you give her,” Andreescu said. “She can change the rhythm. I can change the rhythm too, but she’s on another level, at least today.”
It didn’t help that Andreescu served poorly, losing 17 of 23 points on her second serve. She was broken six times and fell to 1-3 in the second round at Grand Slams, with the lone win coming during her run to the U.S. Open title.
Hsieh is ranked 71st and has a history of inconsistency. But she’s 8-2 against top 10 players, including two wins over the reigning world No. 1 — Simona Halep at Wimbledon in 2018, and Naomi Osaka at Miami in 2019.
“It’s strange — I normally feel more excited to play with better players,” Hsieh said.
Another Canadian mounting a comeback also lost. Rebecca Marino, a former top-40 player competing in a major tournament for the first time in eight years, was beaten by No. 19-seeded Marketa Vondrousova 6-1, 7-5.
Marino had been sidelined with depression and then a serious foot injury.
Two-time major winner Garbine Muguruza is through to the third round after a 6-3, 6-1 win over Liudmila Samsonova of Russia.
Muguruza has been in impressive form since the start of the year, reaching the final of last week’s Yarra Valley Classic warm-up tournament with the loss of just 10 games. She next faces Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan.
The 14th-seeded Spanish player made the final of last year’s Australian Open, falling to Sofia Kenin.
Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, the 2019 Australian Open runner-up, lost to Sorana Cirstea 6-4, 1-6, 6-1. Ann Li, a 20-year-old American, reached the third round for the second major in a row by beating Alize Cornet 6-2, 7-6 (6). No. 7-seeded Aryna Sabalenka eliminated Daria Kasatkina 7-6 (5), 6-3.
In men’s play, former Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka wasted a big lead in the fifth-set tiebreak — and three match points — before losing to Marton Fucsovics of Hungary in the second round, 7-5, 6-1, 4-6, 2-6, 7-6 (11-9).
Wawrinka had won four of his eight previous five-setters at the Australian Open — and he nearly made it another. But five unforced errors in the last seven points of the tiebreaker cost him the match.