Serena impressive - so what's new ?

The second match on RLA today featured Su-Wei Hsieh from Chinese Taipei, ranked 90, but previously as high as 23.  She defeated Latvian teenager Ostapenko in round one in three sets.

Her second round opponent was a promising American, looking for her 70th title and 7th Aus Open. Serena Williams enjoyed a good opening performance against Camila Giorgi in a match of high quality, and would expect to prevail with little trouble in the Hsieh clash.

Williams served first and immediately Hsieh was in the match with impressive ground strokes testing the world number one as far as deuce before the big serve settled the argument and Serena led 1-0.

The enormous forehand of Williams made its presence felt when Hsieh came to serve and 0-40 was achieved in an instant.  Two break points were saved but the deceptive pace of Serena won the day and she broke for 2-0.

The roof was now open and Serena was struggling with the sun on her ball toss.  Two wicked backhands from Hsieh helped ensure that Williams was taken to deuce again - a trip not enjoyed by the top seed.  A winning forehand convinced the scoreboard to tick over another game for Serena and 3-0 was the position.

Unable to cope with the slowness of the Hsieh delivery Serena allowed the posting of the first game against her. 3-1.

Awesome forehand from the back of the court reminded us, if we ever needed it, of the incredible range of shot making that is in the possession of Serena Williams.  The champion extended the lead to 4-1 despite some occasional quality tennis from her opponent.

The lack of potency of the Hsieh serve was this time eaten up by the Williams power and the break was quick and clean - 5-1 and serving for the set.

Su-Wei played a couple of sweet winners, but these were just interludes within the main feature which continued to be the Serena Show and this chapter finished with a set win for the top seed 6-1, the final scene a backhand cross court passing shot deserving itself of an award.

The second set began with a quickfire break of the Su-Wei serve and the path to the end was looking to be shorter by the second.  However Williams was forced to do a lot of running throughout her service game and found it far from easy to finally take the game.  An ace saved the running and she led 2-0.

Just to give the forehand a rest Serena smashed a backhand down the line on the way to setting up more break points, one which was saved before a disappointing double fault sent Su-Wei to 0-3.

A double fault sent Serena to a surprising 15-40.  Big serving saved both break points and won her yet another game and the 4-0 advantage.

Much better by Su-Wei in the fifth game and nice to see her register a score beside her name in set two.  

Serena rushed her way to 5-1 and set her mind to finishing things in the next game.  However Su-Wei would not agree and forced Serena to serve one more time, hitting some more effective shots for the record if not for anything else.

The best player in the world bashed her way routinely to another game, another set and another match win 6-1 6-2, sealed appropriately with an ace.