Venus fined $5K for media silence after Aussie exit

SERENA WILLIAMS BOOKED her place in the third round of the Australian Open with an easy straight sets win against Hsieh Su-Wei.

As tennis’s corruption-fighting body was slammed as “opaque and secretive”, Williams barged past Hsieh Su-Wei 6-1 6-2 to reach the third round as she seeks a record-equalling 22nd major title.

“She’s a tricky opponent who I think was a good match-up for me”, Williams said. “I don’t know if I have done that”, said the American world number one, who showed no signs discomfort from her knee.

Meanwhile, fifth-seeded Maria Sharapova has also made it to the third round of the campaign by sweeping aside Belarus’ Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-2,6-1.

On Tuesday, No. 8-seeded Williams trudged off Rod Laver Arena after her surprising 6-4, 6-3 loss to Johanna Konta, a British player making her debut in the Grand Slam’s main draw. “When I’m aggressive and I have depth on my shots, it’s just good to have that variety to bring players in, to move forward myself”, Sharapova said.

Defending champions Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams stormed into the Australian Open third round on Wednesday as tennis authorities came under fire over their efforts to fight match-fixing.

“I don’t really know”, Serena said.

“I’m very lucky that I got to spend a lot of my young years here, because I obviously got exposed to the heat out here”, said Konta.

Halys was overawed to start with, losing the first seven points to be down a 1-0 and facing triple break point before he managed to hold serve in a game lasting 10 minutes.

The fine is Williams’ second in a year – she was fined $3,000 for the same offence at the French Open – and the biggest ever handed to a woman for missing a press conference at a Grand Slam tournament.

Maria Sharapova advanced to the third round of the Australian Open with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich, staying on course for a potential quarterfinal meeting with Serena Williams. “She’s never mentioned anything about not being here, not competing”. “I had to serve well and as the match went on I started to feel better and better”.

Australian Nick Kyrgios reached the third round with a 6-4 7-5 7-6 (7-2) win over Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas, after overcoming wardrobe trouble.

Other seeded players advancing included No. 12 Belinda Bencic, who had a 6-3, 6-3 win over Timea Babos, and No. 13 Roberta Vinci, who beat Irina Falconi 6-2, 6-3.

Zheng picked up some solid ITF wins last year, and her best run in the latter half of the year was the Dalian title backed up with a couple of quarter-finals (Tokyo and Guangzhou) before tailing off a little.

Hsieh’s forte in recent years has been doubles, having briefly reached world No. 1 status when she partnered with Peng Shuai of China in 2014, but has fallen to 32nd in the rankings since then with several different partners.