Serena Overcomes Giorgi In Opener

Williams and Djokovic each won three of the four major titles last season, with Williams falling two matches short of a calendar-year Grand Slam when she lost in the US Open semifinals and Djokovic’s only loss coming in the French Open final.

Djokovic is bidding to win his sixth Australian Open title and 11th grand slam overall but first he must negotiate a tricky opener against Hyeon Chung, a promising 19-year-old from South Korea.

Ahead of his title defence, and a bid for a record-equaling sixth Australian title (Roy Emerson won six in the 1960s before the Open era started), the No. 1-ranked Djokovic only slightly tweaked his recipe for success.

Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams successfully began the defence of their Australian Open titles today with straight-set victories at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.

Williams’ next opponent will be 18-year-old Russian Daria Kasatkina, who beat Croatia’s Ana Konjuh 6-4, 6-3, and she faces a potential quarterfinal match against 2015 finalist Maria Sharapova, who reached the third round with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich.

She was done in by 12 double faults, compared to just two for Williams.

Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova beat Thai qualifier Luksika Kumkhum, avenging her upset loss in the first round here in 2014, and No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska beat Christina McHale 6-2, 6-3.

But Vinci shocked Williams in three sets, and the best female player in the world later revealed that her right knee had been ailing for most of the second half of the 2015 season. “Every time I go back to Rod Laver Arena, I have these memories come back to me from the first win back in 2008, of course, some of the epic matches I’ve played on that court”. “I think… I got broken once, but other than that I was able to stay focused on that part”, she added.

Williams advances to the second round on Wednesday, when she will play the victor of Monday’s match between Jelena Ostapenko and Su-Wei Hsieh.

Chung is regarded as one of a crop of emerging young prospects, becoming only the second Korean to break into the top-100 previous year and has quickly pushed even further up the rankings to his present position of No 52.

“It’s great. It was an hour and 43 minutes and I didn’t feel it at all”, Williams said, according to ausopen.com.

She lacked pop on her serve, hitting just one ace to five for Konta, and couldn’t match the No. 47-ranked player’s power from the baseline.

“It got me a lot of free points”.

Federer will next play Grigor Dimitrov, who has a style that has been compared with Federer’s, after the No. 27-seeded player beat Marco Trungelliti 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5.

“I have been going non-stop since the Olympics in London, and seeing that this is another Olympic year, I wanted to start the year out really fresh and really go at it again as hard as I can”.

But the defending champion was too good for hard-hitting Italian Giorgi, the highest ranked unseeded player in the draw.

Federer, playing his 65th consecutive major, advanced 6-3, 7-5, 6-1 over Alexandr Dolgopolov.