Serena Williams Sets up Showdown with Nadia Petrova at the Australian Open

Serena Williams had a slow start, but she is through to the third round of the Australian Open after a tough victory over veteran Anne Kremer on Wednesday.

I missed Serena’s match tonight on ESPN2, thanks to the almost one-hour, triple overtime basketball game between Texas and Oklahoma State, but once again, the internet’s audio commentary came through for die-hard tennis fans.

Luxembourg’s Anne Kremer may be thirty-one years old, but she certainly did not act her age in the first set on Vodafone Arena. In a world where 19-year olds are starting to dominate the game, veterans like Anne Kremer are slowly fading away. The Tour’s other significant veterans, Lindsay Davenport and Mary Pierce, are both missing from the field, and Kremer is one of the oldest players on the women’s side of the draw at the 2007 Australian Open.

Kremer raced to a lead in the first set tie-break, but Serena had no intention of going down so quietly. Like I said in the preview for today, she’s quickly becoming accustomed to losing, but not to players outside of the top 150. Her tie-break win gave her enough momentum to get through the second set in a much easier fashion for a 7-6 (4), 6-1 victory.

Serena tends to play her best when she is not considered as a threat for the title (reminiscent of 2005), but her chances to warm-up as she moves through the draw have ended now that she is in the third round, setting up a showdown with world number six Nadia Petrova.

Petrova has not faced Serena since that momentous 2005 Australian Open, where Petrova was beaten 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 by Serena in the fourth round. Since then, Serena has continued to progress downward, compared to Petrova who has added six career titles to her mantelpiece.

Even though Serena holds a 5-1 lead over Nadia in prior meetings, I’m picking Petrova to score the win for a spot in the second week of action at the Australian Open.