Poland’s in-form Agnieszka Radwanska has continued her winning form to reach the second round of the Australian Open.
Unbeaten this year after back-to-back tournament wins in Auckland and Sydney, the 23-year-old beat Australian wildcard Bojana Bobusic 7-5 6-0.
A 6-0 6-0 winner over top-20 player Dominika Cibulkova in the Sydney final, Radwanska took some time before settling into the match but wasted little effort in the second set to breeze past Bobusic.
Meanwhile, second seed Maria Sharapova had little trouble forgetting her lack of match practice as she cruised into the second round.
The reigning French Open champion scored the easiest possible win, crushing fellow Russian Olga Puchkova 6-0 6-0.
Last year’s runner-up allowed Puchkova just 23 points as she ripped through the match in 55 minutes – but it wasn’t a scoreline which was important to her.
“When you’re out there and playing, you’re just focusing on every point and every game and trying to win as many as you can and today was just a good scoreline,” Sharapova said.
“If you win 7-6 in the third, you still won the match,” she said.
The Russian started slowly but took little time before finding her rhythm against Puchkova, an unknown quantity to her.
“After a couple of close games and a few break points, I certainly started to concentrate a bit better,” she said.
“I didn’t want to concentrate on the fact I hadn’t played a lot of matches. I just wanted to focus on what was ahead of me and really be aggressive.”
Sharapova will meet the winner of the clash between Japan’s Misaki Doi and Croatian Petra Martic.
She was joined in the second round by American Venus Williams and China’s Li Na.
Williams took just one hour to dispose of Kazakhstan’s Galina Voskoboeva 6-1 6-0 and will play Alize Cornet of France or New Zealander Marina Erakovic.
Li overpowered Kazak player Sesil Karatantcheva 6-1 6-3.