Australian Open | Serena rolls start in her 100th match in Melbourne

Serena Williams celebrated her 100th match at the Australian Open, a tournament that she is playing for the 20th time and has won seven times., with an overwhelming victory against the German Laura Siegemund (32 years and 49th in the world). The American conceded a break in the first game, but then went over her rival with a 12-1 run to win by a double 6-1 in 56 minutes. He has only lost once in the first round of a major (Roland Garros 2012), so his incredible record is now 76-1 in debuts.

The presence of the queen of tennis never goes unnoticed. He is used to surprising with the outfits he uses to play and in whose designs he actively collaborates with the firm Nike. This time he appeared with a spectacular kit, colorful, tight and uneven in its proportions, which according to Serena herself later revealed, is inspired by the late athlete Florence Griffith Joyner, triple Olympic champion at the Seoul 88 Games. and that she used to run in flashy clothes and heavily made up. “Yes, I was inspired by FloJo (her nickname). I grew up watching her fashion, which was always changing, her outfits were incredible. We thought about what we could do to continue raising the Serena Williams brand on the runway.”

In it, the truth is that Williams gave a feeling of power and agility despite his 39 years Y those right shoulder discomfort he complained about and why he decided not to play Ashleigh Barty in the semifinals of the recent Yarra Valley Open. Williams delivered a sober performance, with 16 winners and 15 unforced errors. In addition, he gave up only nine points with his serve, four of them in that bad first game. From there he did not concede another break ball to Siegemund. In the second round, the winner of 23 Grand Slams, trying for the eleventh time, since he won the Melbourne in 2017, Adding a new trophy to equal Margaret Court's record of 24 will be seen on Wednesday with the 24-year-old Serbian and 100th in the ranking, Nina Stojanovic.

It was good for Serena to beat Siegemund quickly, because she was aware of the Super Bowl and his beloved and admired Tom Brady: “We Americans love it. I'm glad I'm finished to watch the rest of the game, because Tom is also from my age group.”He said still on the Rod Laver. Later, at a press conference, when the Bucaneers had already won, he praised the 43-year-old quarterback: “My only word to describe what he's accomplished is incredible. He's definitely Tom Brady, he's Tom Brady. He's incredible.”

Venus passes with 40 years

Venus Williams, who disputes her 88th Grand Slam at the age of 40, went to the second round like her sister Serena after winning 7-5 and 6-2 another veteran, the Belgian Kirsten Filpkens (35). The American, who played in Melbourne for the first time last century in 1998, failed to win the title, although she was a finalist in 2003 and 2017, both times against Serena. Against Flipkens he only missed 13 shots. In the second round he will meet another old rocker of tennis, the Italian Sara Errani (33), who entered the tournament from the previous one and beat the Chinese Qiang Wang (30th favorite) on Monday by 2-6, 6-4 and 6-4.

Schedule and results.