Australian Open 2012 live stream

This time last year not too many people were familiar with the name Petra Kvitova. Even fewer knew much about her.

But after ousting local hope Sam Stosur in the third round and making it to the final eight in Melbourne, people started to take notice. Just a few months later she won Wimbledon in devastating fashion and everyone knew about the tall Czech girl with the booming groundstrokes.

Starting her fourth Australian Open main draw campaign at Rod Laver Arena is confirmation that Kvitova is no longer an unknown quantity, even to herself.

After sweeping aside luckless Russian Vera Dushevina in a one-sided Rod Laver Arena affair on Tuesday morning, Kvitova admitted that she surprised herself in 2011.

"It was [a] surprise for me what I did last year, nobody knows that I could be No.2 in the world," she said.

"Everybody [is] saying soon I'll be No.1 in the WTA ranking, but you never know."

The second seed this week, she is breathing down Caroline Wozniacki's neck in the current standings. And had she not fallen to Li Na in the Sydney semifinals last week, she'd be No.1 now.

And if both Kvitova and Wozniacki continue to win, they may well face off for the Daphne Akhurst Trophy and the top spot in 11 days time. But that’s a long way off.

A surprisingly shaky start saw Kvitova drop her opening service game, falling behind 0-2, but she quickly recovered to reel off the next 12 games in succession to complete the 6-2 6-0 rout.

“Well, after slow beginning it was fine,” she said. “But, you know, it looks easy, the score, but it wasn't.  The games, some was very close.”

From a distance though, Dushevina simply didn't stand a chance and regularly looked out of her depth. The 82nd-ranked right-hander had never beaten a top two player in 10 previous attempts and today wasn’t her day.

To her credit, she worked hard to keep up with Kvitova but lacked the artillery to seriously challenge the hard-hitting left-hander. And as the pressure mounted and the sun’s heat intensified the spotlight on the Russian, her game wilted.

The cool and calm Kvitova, on the other hand, arrived with a cache of weapons at her disposal. She won several points off her missile-like crosscourt backhand, a deadly stroke that combines power with acute angles.

Her forehand was not as devastating as it usually is, but it was still a more than handy addition to her repertoire.

Also, unlike some of her top 10 contemporaries, Kvitova is happy to move forward and when she gets to the net, she is hard to pass. This keen attacking instinct sets her apart from Wozniacki, for example, and it adds another element to the Czech.

Perhaps the one part of the 21-year-old’s game that failed to really fire today was her serve. Kvitova landed her first serve 60 per cent of the time, a number she will look to improve on in her second outing. Not to mention the five double faults that caused her some frustration.

Kvitova said that she will spend some time on the practice court honing her serve, which she’s sure she can improve, before her second-round match against Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro.

Based on today's form, expect to hear a lot more about Kvitova during the next two weeks. And, if she goes all the way, few will be surprised.