The always-glamorous Serena Williams knows how to dress up for an occasion, and on New Year’s Eve in Brisbane the 15-time Grand Slam champion was sure to note that winning the Brisbane International deserves nothing but her finest.
Pausing to check on the iPhone shots taken by her driver, a good-spirited Williams assured all she was here to win in Brisbane, and crowds should expect the best from the fiery American ahead of a critical Australian Open campaign.
“I mean obviously for me it’s important to win the Australian Open, but I don’t go to a tournament unless I want to win it, so Brisbane is just as important to me,” Williams said.
“The field is so deep, so I think if I can do well here in Brisbane it’ll give me a great step to do really well in Melbourne.”
But, if she wasn’t playing, Williams said she’d be happy to put her money on Aussie Sam Stosur, despite the local soaking up the spotlight.
“I definitely may have hometown trouble with Sam, but I’m OK with it. She deserves to have the crowd behind her. I would totally back her if I weren’t playing,” Williams said.
The pair wouldn’t meet until the quarterfinals in Brisbane, but Williams was excited at the prospect of meeting the Australian on home turf.
“She’s playing really well. I think this surface really suits her game. She’s a crowd favourite and I really like her, actually; she’s a nice girl, so it would be a good match for me regardless.”
After dismissing compatriot Vavara Lepchenko in 59 minutes during her first-round on Sunday, Williams is looking in ominous form to take the title, and with a mere four losses during an unrivalled 2012 season, she was just happy her first-round win kept her 2012 record in remarkable tact.
“I was a little nervous. I felt like it was still 2012 and I wanted to keep my record for the year. And just the first match of the season is very tough.”
With a Southbank onlooker swearing Williams was a Home and Away soapie star, the world’s top two would likely rather she were, after Williams won all eight of her matches against Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova in 2012—just one of those going to three sets.
But Williams, who completed a career Grand Slam by claiming Olympic gold in London, talked down her dominance of the women’s game, humbled by her first-round loss to France’s Virginie Razzano at the French Open in May.
“Anything can happen and I think we all saw that at the French Open, so I think that taught me that anything can happen at any given moment and just to take every day as it comes,” she said.
For Williams, just one Grand Slam trophy this season would be “really kind of cool”.
The No.3 seed will take on world No.44 Alize Cornet in her second-round match after the Frenchwoman ended the run of Australian qualifier Bojana Bobusic in three sets on Monday.