Internazionali BNL d’Italia, Rome

[CR1] Serena Williams (USA) vs. [CR39] Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (RUS)

Williams’ fans were curious to see which Williams would show up today to play against Pavlyuchenkova. Would the dominant Williams show up or the frazzled/shaky Williams from Madrid? It appeared at the beginning that whatever has been troubling Williams was still distracting her.  She looked to be injured or at least in some discomfort the first four games. Then suddenly, a switch was flipped and Williams got fully engaged in the match. She started striking the ball with more conviction off the ground and serving with more pace. Pavlyuchenkova could only shake her head at the transformation. In every encounter between these two, Williams has won a 6-1 set.  That trend continued today when Williams won the first set 6-1.  It is still unclear what issues Williams is struggling with; however, she managed to temporarily ignore them to win the match 6-1, 6-3.