Serena Williams advances to third round of the Australian open 2017. Safarova out! 😉😉

Serena Williams was on edge.

She coughed up two double faults in her opening service game on Thursday night. Her groundstrokes were flying long of the baseline. Her body language betrayed her frustration.

The American legend had reason to be edgy. She’d been forced to wait more than an hour beyond her expected start time of 7pm as Novak Djokovic toiled – and ultimately lost – to Denis Istomin in a stunning upset in the preceding match at Rod Laver Arena.

There was a distinct buzz around Melbourne Park as the news of this momentous upset sank in. Adding to the drama was No.3 seed Agnieszka Radwanska getting belted off court by Mirjana Lucic-Baroni at the adjacent Margaret Court Arena.

Serena was determined to avoid the upset bug. And she did, coming out on top over Lucie Safarova in what was a high-quality encounter featuring a combined tally of 23 aces and 59 winners against 39 errors. But the 6-3 6-4 result didn’t come without a fight.

Serena’s meeting with Safarova came just two days after facing former world No.7 Belinda Bencic to begin her Australian Open 2017 campaign. Safarova, who like Bencic is a former top-10 player, is far better than her current ranking of 61st suggests.