Wozniacki, Sharapova cruise through opening round at Australian Open
The first Grand Slam of the year is underway at Melbourne Park in the sweltering heat of the Australian summer, but the temperatures had no effect on the women’s number one seed Carline Wozniacki, as she overcame her first round
opponent in straight sets.
The 20-year-old Dane is playing her first Grand Slam as the number one seed, and showed little nerves in getting past Argentina's Gisela Dulko 6-3, 6-4 in just over 40 minutes on court.
Also advancing to the next round on day one was Russia’s Maria Sharapova, as she defeated Thailand’s Tamarine Tanasugarn 6-1 6-3, but not before making 22 unforced errors and 10 double faults in the match.
Also in action later today will be Belgian hotshot Justine Henin and Venus Williams.
A first Grand Slam title still eludes Wozniacki, but she will be guaranteed the top ranking on the women’s circuit if she reaches the last four in Melbourne.
In her opening set of the tournament she only needed one break-point to seal the break and in turn win the first set. However, the second set was a bit closer. After going up a break in the opening game, Sharapova was pegged
back by the Argentinean, as Dulko rallied back to bring the game to 4-4.
However, the Dane broke back straight away, before serving for her fist win in a Grand Slam as the top seed. In the second round Wozniacki will come up against Vania King or Tamira Paszek.
After the match, an excited Wozniacki said, “I really love coming back here, it's such a great event, playing here on Rod Laver Arena is an amazing feeling. My dream when I was a little girl was to reach number one in world
and that happened to me last year. But it's a new year, a new start and I'm looking forward to playing here."
In another match on the opening day Maria Sharapova, who missed the 2009 event through injury and crashing out in the first round to Maria Kirilenko in 2010, registered her first win at Melbourne Park since winning the title
in 2008.
The former world number one took a little time to adjust to the scorching heat, as she lost the opening game of the match to love, but came back strongly to win seven straight games after that to take the opening set 6-1. She
then broke her opponent in the opening game of the second set.
The 33-year-old Tanasugarn recovered the break straight after and led 3-1 in the second set at one point, but the Russian broke back and regained the momentum to close out the match by winning five straight games.
Sharapova said after the match, "I knew I had an early exit last year and didn't want it to happen this year."
The 23-year-old three-time Grand Slam champion added, “I really enjoy coming here and whenever you win at a place it brings back greater memories than other places. I’m staying aggressive, trying to get my game better, maybe
to where it was a few years ago and even better."
Next up for Sharapova is French prodigy Virginie Razzano, as she came through her first round match beating Elena Vesnina 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
In the other matches of the opening day Francesca Schiavone was made to work hard by Arantxa Parra Santonja but came through 6-7 (4-7), 6-2, 6-4. Chinese ninth seed Li Na convincingly got past Sofia Arvidsson 6-1, 7-5,
while Marion Bartoli thrashed Tathiana Garbin 6-0, 6-0.
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