Serena Williams Survives Against Unheralded Aussie

The reigning U.S. Open women’s champion came, saw and was almost conquered at the Australian Open on Tuesday night.

It should have been an easy time for Serena Williams, playing a first-round breather against a player ranked 261st, a player who was in the tournament only because she is Australian and, as such, was given a wild-card entry.

When Amanda Grahame of Canberra took the court at Rod Laver Arena to play Williams, she looked skinny and unimposing--she later said she weighed about 135 pounds, or about the same as Serena’s muscular right thigh--and admitted to having been overwhelmed.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect of myself,” Grahame said. “I thought I was going to be really nervous and pretty shaky.”

Two hours and one 30-minute rain delay later, it was Williams who had been pretty shaky, somehow squeaking out a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 victory.

Part of the problem was that Williams hasn’t played a tour match since Oct. 4. Another part was that she arrived in Melbourne just a few days ago, hardly time enough to get used to drastic time-zone differences and extremely different playing conditions--throat-parching heat and lighting-fast court surfaces.

But the biggest problem was Grahame, 20. She has played the minor league women’s circuit in Australia for the last two years, is ranked 11th in Australia, and was so little known by the women’s tour staff that one of the information sheets listed her as right-handed.

She is left-handed, and with a wrist about as big around as a deep-sea fishing rod, she somehow generated such a big serve that Williams was on her heels all night. Grahame was consistently around 110 mph on her first serve, and she didn’t take much off her second, which had the usual lefty kick-high-and-spin-away action.

As the match progressed, it was amazing to see the wiry Aussie jerking the husky Williams from corner to corner. The crowd of 15,021 loved it, of course, and when Grahame finally succumbed by netting a forehand on match point and Williams stood in the middle of the court and blew kisses, the standing ovation was as much for the vanquished as for the victor.

Soon, the Aussies were singing chorus after chorus of “If you love Amanda, clap your hands.”

Grahame said, “That was incredible. I wasn’t sure how to react. It was just overwhelming.”

Williams praised Grahame afterward and said she had been lucky to win after making 55 unforced errors.

“It’s really out of control, the way I played today,” she said. “There’s no excuse. I can’t say that, because I was off for three months, that gives me an excuse.”

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A sidelight of the Williams-Grahame match was the issue of foot faults.

Williams wore a tennis dress with a black top and a bright red skirt, with matching red shoes. She was called for eight foot faults, and said she was told the red shoes contributed to the unusually high number.

So, the obvious thing to do, despite her big marketing push for her Puma shoe and clothing line, is to dump the red shoes, right?

“No, I’m gonna keep the shoes,” she said. “I’ll just move back a little before I serve.”

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The ride into the sunset by former French Open champion Michael Chang continued Tuesday, with a first-round loss to Roger Federer of Switzerland.

The 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (5) loss was particularly disappointing for Chang, who had prepared well by reaching the final of a tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, last week before losing to Magnus Norman. Chang had struggled through the worst year of his career in 1999.

But playing in the Auckland event might have been a mistake, since the court speed in this tournament is so much faster.

Federer, 18, has a big serve and is ranked 62nd. Chang is ranked 38th, but he will turn 28 next month, doesn’t have a big serve, and his days of outthinking and outlasting opponents seem to be behind him.

Tennis Notes

Goran Ivanisevic, the Croatian who leads the men’s tour in unpredictability and great quotes, kept both strings going. First, he beat a player ranked 55 spots above him, No. 15 Cedric Pioline of France, then he handled Pioline’s post-match fastball down the middle in characteristic form. Pioline said he was upset at losing because, “We all know Goran. He can lose to anybody, even his mum.” Ivanisevic responded, “I can beat her. She never played tennis.”

The legendary Jack Kramer is at home in Los Angeles, recovering from emergency knee surgery. He was injured when a golf cart he was riding in tipped over. Kramer’s longtime friend and doubles partner, Ted Schroeder, the 1949 Wimbledon champion who also shared three U.S. Open doubles titles with Kramer, is in Melbourne, as he has been just about every year since 1951. Schroeder works for a radio network. He and Kramer are each 78, but Schroeder said, “I don’t look a day over 90.”