{"id":3986,"date":"2013-01-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2013\/01\/williams-overcomes-fall-to-win-in-australian-open\/"},"modified":"2013-01-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T00:00:00","slug":"williams-overcomes-fall-to-win-in-australian-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/01\/15\/williams-overcomes-fall-to-win-in-australian-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Williams overcomes fall to win in Australian Open"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Serena_Williams_\"Murray, Federer cruise into round two<\/strong><\/p>\n

SERENA Williams advanced to the second round of the Australian Open without dropping a game as her right ankle gave her more trouble than her opponent, Edina Gallovits-Hall.<\/p>\n

Andy Murray was relieved to have got through his opening grand slam match of the year after doing a \u201cpretty good job\u201d on Robin Haase.<\/p>\n

On his part, Roger Federer also opened his challenge and his season with a routine straight-sets victory over France\u2019s Benoit Paire.<\/p>\n

Williams, five-time singles champion in Melbourne, won their only previous encounter 6-1 6-2 back in 2008, but here she was even more dominant, winning 6-0 6-0 against an opponent who simply had no answers to her power and precision.<\/p>\n

The only bump in the road for the third seed was a heavy fall on the Hisense Arena court midway through the first set which led to a lengthy break in play as she had her ankle treated, but even that could not help Gallovits-Hall, ranked 110th in the world, get on the board.<\/p>\n

The match could hardly have got off to a worse start for the Romanian as she double-faulted to give Williams a break in the first game.<\/p>\n

And there was more of the same as the American overwhelmed her opponent with her powerful groundstrokes to make it 3-0.<\/p>\n

At 4-0, Williams suffered a scare as she slipped on her heavily strapped right ankle while chasing down a forehand and crashed to the ground.<\/p>\n

She eventually limped back to her seat and the trainer removed the bandaging from her foot to administer treatment.<\/p>\n

After having the strapping re-applied, Williams was okay to continue and she showed there was no lasting damage by hammering three colossal forehand winners in the next four points on her way to a third break and a 5-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Williams received more treatment at the change of ends but held to 15 to seal the first set.<\/p>\n

The second set started just as the first had – with Gallovits-Hall double-faulting to give Williams an opening break.<\/p>\n

She broke to love in game three and had help from yet another Gallovits-Hall double fault – her eighth – to make it 5-0, before serving out another love game to complete the most comprehensive of victories in 54 minutes.<\/p>\n

Gallovits-Hall produced just one winner to Williams\u2019 18, and only won only 18 points in total.<\/p>\n

Next up for Williams – assuming there is no lasting damage to her ankle – will be either Slovakia\u2019s Magdalena Rybarikova or Garbine Muguruza of Spain.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Haase represented a potentially tricky first assignment for the world number three but the Dutchman was never allowed to get into his stride as Murray dominated in a 6-3 6-1 6-3 victory.<\/p>\n

It was as good a first-round performance as Murray has delivered in recent years and he was pleased with how he coped in the oppressive heat on Rod Laver Arena.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good start,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was very different conditions to what it\u2019s been like the last four, five days. The court was playing different, much livelier.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I thought I did a pretty good job from the start – dictating the points and not giving him too many freebies.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Murray\u2019s first grand slam match since he claimed his maiden major at the U.S. Open last year, but he claimed he was still nervous beforehand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there is anyone who doesn\u2019t (get nervous)\u2026Nerves are a good thing. If you aren\u2019t nervous, it shows that you\u2019re really not that bothered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is always nice to get through the first round of any tournament but especially here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benoit Paire, current second seed came to Melbourne having played no warm-up tournaments, but showed no signs of rustiness as he kicked off his bid for a fourth Australian Open title with a 6-2 6-3 6-1 win over the world number 46 in just 83 minutes.<\/p>\n

For Paire, who deals more in spurts of inspiration than the sustained brilliance of Federer, it was a painful experience and by the end he looked keen to get off court as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

Federer said: \u201cBenoit\u2019s a good player, a good talent. I haven\u2019t played a match this season yet. You\u2019re not sure [how you\u2019re going to play] and that\u2019s why you\u2019re relieved when you get through the first one.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Murray, Federer cruise into round two SERENA Williams advanced to the second round of the Australian Open without dropping a game as her right ankle gave her more trouble than her opponent, Edina Gallovits-Hall. Andy Murray was relieved to have got through his opening grand slam match of the year after doing a \u201cpretty good job\u201d on Robin Haase…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}