Serena Williams into 4th round at Melbourne

The second seed ruthlessly snuffed out Nicole Gibbs’s challenge as she seeks a record 23rd Grand Slam title, clinically dispatching her fellow American 6-1 6-3 on Rod Laver Arena.

Despite her best ever performance at a grand slam, Duan leaves Melbourne after a disappointing 6-1, 6-0 round three loss where nerves and inconsistency gave the world No. 17 a comfortable progression to the fourth round in 59 minutes.

Serena Williams first two matches at the Australian Open was not a routine win, as she slugged it out against two former top 10 players.

The top-seeded man left in this half of the bracket, Milos Raonic, was pushed to four sets against Gilles Simon, but ultimately came out on top, 6-2, 7-6 (5), 3-6, 6-3.

Assuming Williams can stay the course in pursuit of her record-setting 23rd slam, she will meet the victor of Ekaterina Makarova’s quarterfinal clash with either Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki or Great Britain’s Johanna Konta.

Brady now has a chance to reach the quarter-finals, with the unseeded Mirjana Lucic-Baroni – who beat Greece’s Maria Sakkari 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 – her next opponent.

In the victory, Venus won 73 percent of her first serve points and 50 percent of her second serve points.

Brady continued her dazzling run Saturday, defeating No. 14 seed Elena Vesnina 7-6 (4), 6-2.

Williams stared down every challenge from the 23-year-old Gibbs.

In response, Williams channelled her inner-John McEnroe in an incredulous reply, asserting: “I think that’s a very negative thing to say”.

“She played well, there were so many balls coming back”.

In fact, Serena Williams loves tacos so much that she often posts videos of herself making them for fans to watch. Pavlyuchenkova has dropped just one set this tournament and is fresh off a match in which she had 21 winners and was dominant with her first serve.

Meanwhile, Australian star Daria Gavrilova has defeated Swiss 12th seed Timea Bacsinszky to book a fourth-round showdown with Karolina Pliskova at the Australian Open. The set eventually went to a tie-break, and Cibulkova took it 7-3. However, Pavlyuchenkova has been bad with her second serve in her last two matches, something Venus will eat up.

She worked three break points, converting with a sizzling forehand down the line.