Australian Open 2012 live stream

Over the years we’ve come to expect a familiar pattern when watching Serena Williams progress through a Grand Slam tournament.

She’ll throw in an early shocker, spraying balls everywhere and getting flustered before somehow calming herself down, finding her game in the nick of time and narrowly avoiding almost-certain defeat. And then buoyed by the exhilaration of her escape, she goes on to win the whole tournament.

Nowhere has her Houdini act been more prevalent than at Melbourne Park. We saw it in the first round in 2003 when she barely survived the unseeded Emelie Loit. In 2007, she was down 6-1, 5-3 against Nadia Petrova in the third round before fighting her way back. And against Victoria Azarenka in 2009, she was down and out in their fourth round battle before the Belorussian had to retire with illness.

Yet so far at Australian Open 2012, Williams has not had to fight any such battle. After cruising through her first two matches for the combined loss of just nine games, Serena was in even more imperious form tonight on Rod Laver Arena, brushing aside Hungarian veteran Greta Arn in just 59 minutes.

In typical style, Williams said that she was nowhere near the form she’d like to be in.

“You know, I just can hit a little deeper and better, be more consistent. You know, hopefully that will come as hopefully I keep playing,” she said.

But to the casual observer, her 6-1, 6-1 destruction of the 32-year-old – who described playing Williams as “an honour” – was a showcase of some extremely impressive tennis. The No.12 seed raced to a 5-0 lead in just over 20 minutes, bullying Arn around the court with a barrage of heavy groundstrokes and moving stealthily about the court. It was no doubt an intimidating prospect for Arn, and her rapidly mounting error tally indicated as such.

The only real blip on Serena’s report card was a mangled smash in the sixth game on her first set point, eliciting a high-pitched scream that reverberated throughout Melbourne Park’s premier court. Yet when Arn replied with an even uglier botched smash in the very next game, Williams went on to pocket the opening set.

“It was an awkward smash,” Williams later recounted.

“Then she missed one and I felt a little better. I felt like, ‘am I losing my mind out here?’ Everyone always sometimes hits a shot that's a little bit insane and you just got to allow yourself to get over it.”

She certainly seemed to get over it, as the second stanza was an even more brutal affair. Moving ahead 4-0, Williams shot daggers down the court when Arn dared insert herself on the scoreboard in the next game. She responded with a punishing performance in the sixth game after facing a break point, delivering an emphatic ace – accompanied by a loud grunt – and shouting “c’mon!” after she snared the game.

Just four points later, and after two consecutive Arn double-faults, victory was secured.

So where to now for Serena? One thing’s for sure – her upcoming matches are likely to get much tougher indeed. Without wanting to jinx the women’s tournament – for Grand Slams on the ladies side have for a long time now been dying for some blockbuster tennis – the big names of the WTA are so far still alive and kicking. The presence of Clijsters, Sharapova, Kvitova, Wozniacki, Azarenka, Li, Ivanovic and Jankovic in addition to the 13-time major champion has ensured the women’s event will provide plenty of interest as the second week looms.

Williams has dodged somewhat of a bullet as her fourth-round encounter is against the unheralded Ekaterina Makarova, yet should she come though that she faces a potential quarterfinal against fourth seed Sharapova.

But for now, Serena is content to just take things one match at a time. Still on the mend after an ankle injury sustained at the Brisbane International just two weeks ago, Williams said her days off from play involved a lot of treatment. This lead to an interesting little strain of conversation that revealed she is embarking on a kinesiology course.

“Every time I go to the doctor, I can pinpoint and tell him exactly what's wrong with me. I know more about my injury than they do at the time,” she explained.

“The communication that I have is really great. I've always thought if I could just learn about my body and keep learning about physiology, sciences, stuff like that, just for the future I thought it would be really cool. You never stop learning about your body.”

In a chatty mood, the five-time Australian Open winner said she was also undertaking a business course, workshopping design ideas for her clothing label, and hoping to explore meditation down the track. And she’s just scored an acting gig in “a pretty big show in the United States”, which will apparently take place after the tournament.

Why such a loaded schedule?

“If I'm thinking too much, I'm thinking too much about my job, which is tennis. Then I can start thinking about too much what to do. I try to keep my mind as far away from that,” she said.

“(But) when I'm here, I keep my mind so on it that I'm like crazy.”

As poor Greta Arn will tell you, that’s not good news for her upcoming opponents.