MELBOURNE, Australia — Serena Williams moved a step closer to successfully defending her Australian Open title and extracted some family revenge today with a 6-0, 6-3 victory over Carla Suarez Navarro.
Last year, Suarez Navarro beat Venus Williams in the second round. The Spaniard didn’t even get close this time.
Serena Williams’ only real difficulty at Hisense Arena was in closing the first set, needing eight set points in a game that went to deuce 13 times and lasted longer than the previous five games combined.
Top-ranked Roger Federer had a 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 victory over No. 31 Albert Montanes to register his 50th win at Melbourne Park, where he has won three of his record 15 Grand Slam singles titles.
“It was important to come through the first week,” Federer said. “I feel good. I feel confident. Physically I’m fine and mentally fresh and that’s the way you want to go into the second week.”
Nikolay Davydenko extended his impressive run with a 6-0, 6-3, 6-4 victory over No. 30 Juan Monaco of Argentina. Davydenko will face Fernando Verdasco, who lost an epic, five-set semifinal to eventual champion and fellow Spaniard Rafael Nadal last year. Verdasco advanced when Austria’s Stefan Koubek retired because of sickness after losing the first set 6-1.
The sixth-seeded Davydenko counts wins against Federer and Nadal at last year’s World Tour Final and this season’s opening event at Doha among his 12-match winning streak. The 28-year-old Russian has never gone beyond the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, and his best runs at a major ended in semifinal defeats at the French and U.S. opens.
Women’s No. 1 Williams, who has won the Australian title each odd-numbered year since beating sister Venus in the 2003 final, will next play No. 13 and local hope Sam Stosur, a 6-4, 6-1 winner over Italian Alberta Brianti. Williams finished off Suarez Navarro, a quarterfinalist here last year, on her third match point in 1 hour, 21 minutes.
Venus, meanwhile, ousted Casey Dellacqua of Australia 6-1, 7-6 (4).
No. 7 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus had a 6-0, 6-2 win over Italy’s Tathiana Garbin in an early match to set up a fourth-round match against No. 9 Vera Zvonareva, who beat Argentina’s Gisela Dulko 6-1, 7-5.
Play started slightly late due to light drizzle around Melbourne, which cleared toward midday. It only took seconds for the first result to be registered, however, with No. 20 Mikhail Youzhny withdrawing from his scheduled third- round match against Poland’s Lukasz Kubot because of a wrist injury. Kubot will meet third-seeded Novak Djokovic, a 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 winner over Denis Istomin, in the fourth round.
