Serena flexes muscles in Sydney

Serena Williams rebounded from her shaky start to the year with an awesome demonstration of her Australian Open intent at the Sydney International yesterday.

The world number two showed no signs of rustiness in her scrappy first-round win over Samantha Stosur as she demolished Italy's Sara Errani 6-1 6-2.

The American belted nine aces past her bewildered opponent in an ominous warning to her rivals ahead of next week's first grand slam of the season.

"I played a little better today but I can still improve on some things and that's what I want to do," she told a news conference.

The powerful Russian contingent also flexed their muscles, with Dinara Safina, Elena Dementieva and Svetlana Kuznetsova all advancing to the quarter-finals.

World number three Safina was ruthless in her 6-3 6-0 win over fellow Russian Vera Dushevina while Kuznetsova showed her determination to get out of a tight corner in her 6-2 2-6 7-6 victory over Estonia's Kaia Kanepi.

Dementieva, who won last week's Auckland Classic in New Zealand, chalked up her seventh straight win this year in defeating Slovakia's Jarmila Gajdosova 6-2 6-4.

With the top four seeds, headed by reigning Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic, all given byes into the second round, the men's matches contained some surprises.

Last year's champion, Russian Dmitry Tursunov was bundled out by Richard Gasquet 7-6 6-4 while last week's Brisbane International winner, Radek Stepanek, retired in the second set against France's Jeremy Chardy while trailing 6-4 3-0.

Sixth seed Tomas Berdych struggled to contain the booming serve of Australian Chris Guccione, a finalist in Sydney last year, as he suffered a 6-3 6-4 defeat.

Eighth-seeded American Mardy Fish fell to Serbia's Janko Tipsarevic while Lleyton Hewitt, a four-time title winner in Sydney, defeated Julien Benneteau 5-7 6-2 6-4.