The Australian Open is now underway in Melbourne and after Serena Williams was able to get through her early match, a number of other players are opening their first round matches on the schedule and players like Victoria Azarenka, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Roger Federer and Juan Martin Del Potro will be looking to get off to fast starts and the defending champions come in as favorites and the coverage will be on ESPN2 and streaming from WatchESPN.
Serena Williams comes in as the favorite despite the fact that Victoria Azarenka is the defending champion and it comes after she won the US Open last year and also dropped just four matches during her season. Williams started things off quickly and is now through to the next round, while her sister flamed out quickly in the first round after losing in three sets on Monday and after winning the first set she could not hold tight and ended up losing 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 and that was against Ekaterina Makarova, while Serena played against Australian teenager Ashleigh Barty and beat her in less than hour and that came after Williams won the Brisbane tournament in warm ups for this event.
Williams took control to start the third set, but she couldn't hold on after being up 4-2 and now she will be out for just the second time in the first round in the 14 times she has been there. On the draw, Serena is the number one seed over Azarenka coming into the tournament and so is Nadal over defending champions Novak Djokovic and on the men's side, the top seed has the tougher part of the draw with Federer, Murray and del Potro are all on that side. Azarenka won her match in straight sets after winning the first set in a tiebreaker and now she is through to the second round.
Check here for the Australian Open live coverage.
