Clijsters/Venus in dominant form

Kim Clijsters and Venus Williams highlighted just how wide the gap is between the leading women and the also-rans today with emphatic victories in the third round of the Australian Open.

It is hard to see any women outside the top five seeds challenging for the title, particularly with the likes of Clijsters hitting such dominant form.

The Belgian world number two, still unaffected by the ankle injury which threatened her very participation here, took just 50 minutes to whitewash Maria Elen Camerin of Italy 6-0 6-0 at the Rod Laver Arena.

Williams, last year’s runner-up, spent marginally longer on court to complete her own one-sided victory, finishing a 6-4 6-2 winner over Russian Vera Douchevina.

But while Clijsters and Williams march on, the women’s draw lost four seeds including Japan’s Ai Sugiyama, Anna Smashnova-Pistolese (14), Francesca Schiavone (18) of Italy and petite South African Amanda Coetzer (27).

Sugiyama lost her all-Japan clash 6-4 6-4 to Saori Obata while Coetzer went down to Dinara Safina, sister to men’s star Marat Safin, and will now face Clijsters in the third round.

The Belgian felt she had been in complete control of her match against Camerin, limiting the Italian to an incredible nine points in the first set.

“I felt sharp and doing with the ball whatever I wanted,” she said.

“It doesn’t happen every day that you have matches like this.

“Although I played really good today I still wouldn’t say it is perfect. There’s still a lot of things I can work on and that I would like to see better through the tournament.”

Williams is attempting to play herself back into form after spending six months on the sidelines overcoming an abdominal injury.

She won the invitational event in Hong Kong and, bar a little rust, has looked in impressive form so far this week.

“I had a good match. I made a few more errors than I wanted to, but really the whole goal was just to keep hitting out,” she said.

“I felt that I could have pulled back and cut my errors in half, but I really wanted to go after her and play well.”