Top seed and tennis ace Serena Williams marched into the 3rd round on Tuesday while tennis stars Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal overcame their opening matches in the China Open.
The world number one tennis player Williams of America appeared agitated at times during her 6-4, 7-5 victory over Francesca Schiavone of Italy, shouting at herself over lost points. She just displayed rare moments of her trademark power-play, gaining dominance in the first set through a mistake from her rival, who double-faulted on set point. However, Williams was compelled to become more aggressive in the 2nd set following her serve was broken in the first game by Schiavone, who is first Grand Slam winner of Italy at Roland Garros in 2010 and in addition the current world number 50.
As the competition progressed, both the players' tempers threatened to boil over. Williams became aggressive, while Schiavone smashed balls into the barriers at the side of the court in Beijing.
At the end, Williams seemed calmer and quieter, as she hit upon a hard-earned victory. She admitted that she was able to save some energy, so she began walking slower and took her time more. When she did that, she actually won three or four games at a stretch.
Meanwhile, her sister Venus crashed out by 6-1, 6-2 to Wimbledon finalist Sabine Lisicki. The 12th seed Carla Suarez Navarro thrashed Lauren Davis of America by 6-4, 6-2 to occupy her place in the 3rd round.
On the men's side, Novak Djokovic of Serbia is all set to reclaim the title he won in the Chinese capital last year. He sneaked past Lukas Rosol by 6-0, 6-3. The world number one plus top seed got the better of his Czech challenger in just 53 minutes.
In the meantime Nadal, who could dethrone Djokovic in the world rankings following Beijing, encountered a bit more resistance from Santiago Giraldo, as the Spaniard claimed a 6-2, 6-4 victory in approximately 90 minutes. Actually, the second seed is scheduled to clash with Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany, while Djokovic will encounter Fernando Verdasco of Spain in the second round.
In another game, both fifth seed Richard Gasquet and sixth seed Stanislas Wawrinka comfortably got the victory. Meanwhile, Gasquet of France trounced Florian Mayer of Germany by 6-3, 7-6 (7/2), while Wawrinka of Switzerland required three sets to overpower Andreas Seppi of Italy by 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Above all, Verdasco rejoiced victory over Somdev Devvarman of India by 7-6 (8/6), 6-3 and Sam Querrey of America banged Mikhail Youzhny of Russia by 7-6 (7/3), 6-3.
