Serena wins first Aussie match
MELBOURNE, Australia -- The difference in 12 months was easy to see.
Serena Williams, wearing hot pink bicycle shorts a short white dress and dangling, chandelier-inspired earrings, found her form quickly and beat Jarmila Gajdosova 6-3, 6-3 Monday in the first match in the Australian Open.
Last year, Williams was unseeded, ranked 81st and coming off one of her worst losses on tour -- in a Tier 4 event at Hobart -- yet she beat six seeded players en route to the title at Melbourne Park. It was her eighth, and least expected, Grand Slam win.
Expectations -- hers and the pundits -- are much higher this season.
"It's obviously a lot different -- I'm not No. 81 any more. And the court's different -- it's a different color," Williams told the crowd after her 62-minute match at Rod Laver Arena against Australian resident Gajdosova.
At her pre-tournament press conference, the seventh-seeded Williams said she had not even looked at who she was playing first because she was focused on herself.
At 3-0 in the first set, the attitude seemed to be vindicated.
But then she stumbled, dropping her serve on three forehand errors. Instead of moving her feet, she was reaching for balls and surprised by some of the pace coming from the No. 145-ranked Gajdosova.
Williams held to lead 4-3, then slipped and fell onto her bottom on the new blue Plexicushion surface. She got up, and regained her focus and momentum.
She won the set with consecutive aces and then made only five unforced errors in the second set.
"Yeah, I'm feeling good," Williams said after she jogged to the net with her left arm raised, index finger outstretched, to meet Gajdosova. "Most of all, I'm enjoying myself."
Two former women's champions who weren't in Melbourne last year when Williams made her remarkable run also were in action on the opening day.
No. 1 Justine Henin followed Williams on center court in her match against Japan's Aiko Nakamura. Henin was going through a divorce and skipped the last event. Lindsay Davenport was pregnant with her first child and on a break from the tour.