• Australian Open, Day Two

What They Said

ESPN staff
January 17, 2012
Novak Djokovic pulled out all the shots during his opening round win © Getty Images
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ESPN will be providing extensive coverage of the Australian Open, with live scores, commentary and analysis and you can follow it all with our live scorecentre

Murray battles past Harrison
Men's round-up: Djokovic dominant
Women's round-up: Kvitova cruises, Stosur out

Plays of the Day
Day Two gallery

World No. 1 Novak Djokovic made light work of his opening-round encounter as he recorded a 92-minute win, saying: "It was a great performance for my first official match of the 2012 season. It's great to come back to Melbourne, I have great memories here.

"Nowadays I'm a more complete player. I feel I know what to do on court. I'm physically stronger, move better, have improved my strokes and serve better - that gives me a lot of confidence."

It was gone midnight when Serena Williams left Rod Laver Arena, but the 13-time grand slam champion wasted little time in booking her place in the second round with a straight-sets win over Tamira Paszek. While Williams admitted she preferred night matches to early starts, there was one problem she struggled to deal with: "Bugs fell on my back twice. I hate bugs more than you can imagine. I hate bugs. Like, they kept jumping on me -- yuck! So I'm going to request not to play at night anymore because I hate bugs, except for the final. I heard it's at night, though. I'll try to get used to them."

Petra Kvitova was another easy winner, dropping just two games in her first match, but insists there is still improvement in her game saying: "After a slow start it was fine. But I can improve my serve for sure. The score looks easy but it wasn't, the games were very close and I am glad I am through."

Andy Roddick predicted an epic battle ahead of in his mouth-watering second-round clash against fellow former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt. Roddick, who saw off Robin Haase in straight sets, expects the match to go the distance.

"I think when we play, numbers go out the door as far as the number next to our name as far as ranking. I don't pay much attention to it when it comes to Lleyton. He knows how to win tennis matches. He's a fighter. I have as much respect for him as I do for anybody in the game, how he goes about his business, how he competes, how professional he is. I've won the most recent meetings, but I think out of the six that I've won, four or five have gone the distance to the last set. We always have a bit of a war. I probably don't see it being any different."

Sorana Cirstea caused the biggest upset of day two as she knocked out US Open champion, and Australian hope, Sam Stosur in the first round. The Romanian said: "Probably the whole country hates me right now. I hope when you wake up in the morning you feel better about me. I'd just like to thank everyone today for coming to watch us play.

"Everyone was focusing on her (Stosur) more and forgot about me a little bit. I heard everyone saying on TV this would be an easy win for her. So I just kept practising and doing my own stuff."

Sam Stosur was hugely disappointed by her first round exit © Getty Images
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Sam Stosur admitted the pressure of being home favourite got to her as she was the biggest casualty on Day Two. "I think for sure it affects you physically. That's probably the easiest sign for the outside people to see. Obviously I know what's going on inside. I think it is easy to see that you tighten up, your shoulders do get tight, you don't hit through the ball. When anyone's nervous, I think the first thing that goes is your footwork. You don't move your feet as well. Once that breaks down, it's easy for other things to start breaking down."

Maria Sharapova dropped one game in her first-round win over Gisela Dulko, saying: "She can definitely play some really good tennis but I think I was just mentally prepared for that. I was getting ready, I've been practising here. Overall I think I played pretty good and aggressive and she's someone that likes to have time to create her shots. You know she has great hands - it was important to try to take that away from her."

Gael Monfils eased past Marinko Matosevic in straight sets and he was happy that the temperature ramped up well into the 90s. He said: "I like when it's really warm. Heat for me is nothing, you know. I'm from the Caribbean. Most of the time I'm out there in November, it's very hot. I've been in Barbados, which is hot. With the wind today, it seems like it was 20 degrees."

Former world No. 4 Jelena Dokic eased into round two with a routine win over Anna Chakvetadze and she is happy with how her game is progressing. She said: "I think things are going well. I think I'm playing well. Sometimes you might even have losses, but you have to look at the bigger picture. At the end of the tournament, there's only one winner. There's 128 of us. It's not all bad if you lose. You got to look at it as the whole year. As long as you're improving what you're doing, every day you're putting in the hard work, it's going to pay off."

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