By Xinhua
Melbourne : World No. 1 and defending champion Roger Federer hardly worked out a sweat before he breezed past Fabrice Santoro 6-1, 6-2, 6-0 into the Australian Open third round here Thursday.
Women’s second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova also pulled off her second round victory against Tsvetana Pironkova from Bulgaria 7-6 (7-0), 6-2 while Venus Williams experienced ups and downs before beating Camille Pin of France 7-5, 6-4 to take on Indian 31st seed Sania Mirza, winning 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 over Swiss Timea Bacsinszky.
Swiss Federer took just 81 minutes to hit seven aces and 53 winners to take the lopsided second round match from the 35-year-old Frenchman.
“Today I just really got off to a good start. I think I played him in a very smart way,” said Federer.
The top seed will next face Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia who stunned Spanish 25th seed Fernando Verdasco 7-5, 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-3) to progress.
“He made it through in that group. I thought Verdasco was going to make it. But Janko has really improved a lot the last couple years,” Federer said.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how the beginning of the match starts. It’s going to be a dangerous match. He beat some good players the last couple of years.”
Kuznetsova was off to a slow start and down at 5-3 in the first set. “I didn’t start well and she’s been playing good. I didn’t play my game,” she said.
The Russian then changed tactics, which worked well for her game. “I tried to put more balls in play and tried to make rallies long. So she’s not very consistent,” Kuznetsova explained.
Williams struggled in her first set where nine breaks happened for both the players and a total of 14 for the match. But the six times Grand Slam winner managed to make the crucial break at 6-5 and carried on to win the second set despite her 44 unforced errors, doubling that of her opponent.
“She plays a really feisty game, brings a lot of balls back and a lot of ball low,” said Williams about her rival. “She was definitely on her best tennis today.”
“It’s just important for me to get to the next round. I feel like I can always play better,” she added.
In the men’s field, Serbian third seed Novak Djokovic did not meet much challenge when he defeated Italian Simone Bolelli 6-1, 6-2, 6-2.
Host player Lleyton Hewitt kept home spectators’ hopes alive by overcoming Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, 5-7, 6-1.