Serena in no mood for hanging around

Greta Arn from Hungary had never reached the third round of the Aus Open previously so the 32 year old had already made her history in 2012.  She spoke glowingly of Serena Williams prior to the match and hopefully the 12th seed would reciprocate in kind on the court.  However, despite Serena's slightly more human outward persona this year, her tennis face is as ever, unforgiving.

The 92nd ranked Arn, whose terrific upset win over 17th seed Cibulkova - 10-8 in the third - assured the match up with Williams, came armed with good intentions,  but each of these was met with either a wicked forehand passing shot or one of the various other products in the Serena fashion range.

While not quite a pointless exercise - Greta did win the occasional point - the real fear persisted that no games would be allocated beyond American shores before the contest concluded.  Why the five time champion is not the bookies' favourite here is a little strange considering her unparallelled Melbourne Park record (probably needing to overcome Sharapova then Kvitova before the final may be why they are hedging), and her subtle dismantling of Greta Arn convinced me that Serena has more to give.  She is saving her best work, where subtlety is left at the hotel, for later matches.

The loudest cheer of the evening for the girls was reserved for Greta when she captured the sixth game of the match much to the chagrin of Williams, who could now merely win the first set 6-1, which unsurprisingly she did.

The shots of a legend flowed in the second set, and with Serena that is not hyperbole.  Because we see some of these strokes played regularly off her racquet, we become insulated from the fact that a racquet in any other females hand would be incapable of repeating them, in many cases wouldn't even attempt the folly.

Another 4 games aligned themselves with Williams - they knew a winner when they saw one - and then the second biggest cheer of the match greeted the winning of Greta's second game.  Serena thanked everyone for coming before executing the formal closing 6-1 6-1.