It’s not polite to make ladies wait, but the 4-hour marathon between Raonic and Wawrinka and the rain delay meant that Serena Williams and Eugenie Bouchard opened the night session in the Rod Laver Arena over 90 minutes later than expected. Patrons at Melbourne Park didn’t seem to mind, though, since food and drink were in abundant supply at the concessions, the Bastille were playing at the AO Live stage and Lleyton Hewitt was whipping up the crowd playing doubles.
The very convincing Bouchard who lost a very tight match in Auckland to future winner Georges was supposed to give Serena a good run for her money, but even if the lovely Canadian played some good tennis, the match-up with 23-time Major winner meant she ended up losing quite comprehensively 6-2 6-2 in 1 hour, 10 minutes.
Bouchard won only two games in the first set and she did so by breaking Serena twice. Her renewed service motion and her evident desire to keep the first serve in played in the hands of Serena who progressively found the timing to hit winners off the return. Bouchard didn’t even try to move Serena, whose two-piece suit highlights her abundant curves, with short cross shots to open up the court down the line, and on the artillery fight from the baseline, Serena is just a category above.
“I don’t think I played a very good match – said a very subdued Bouchard hiding behind her baseball hat – especially with my serve, which is an area of my game I was quite satisfied with lately. I felt I was always rushed and I could get into the rallies”.
Williams advances to the third round where she will face Dayana Yamstreska, 19 years her junior: “I don’t know much about her, it’s Patrick [Mouratoglou]’s job to tell me how she plays. Of course, I will take her extremely seriously, she got this far and she’s here to win, too. I am here to work hard, do whatever I have to do to share my time between my work and my role as a mom, and do everything at the best of my abilities”.
