Francesca Schiavone has been defeated by the local superstar Serena Williams in the opening round of the ongoing US Open.  Serena won the match easily in the straight sets by 6-0, 6-1.

It was another display of destructive tennis by Serena. She has entered Flushing Meadows as hot favourite this year and she justified that tag in style yesterday. It took her just about an hour to knock her Italian opponent out of the competition.

It was the 8^th match between these two players and Serena defeated Schiavone for the 6^th time.

In the post match interview, Serena said, “Competing against a quality player like Francesca in the opening round is not an easy draw. I couldn’t have taken this match lightly. I had to be spot on.”

Serena came into the opening set in a ferocious mood. The crowd was behind her too. The spectators out there were cheering each and every shot coming out of the racket of the 31 years old local veteran.

Serena needed just 20 odd minutes to seal the opener. Her shots were just too good for Schiavone who looked all over the place. The Italian couldn’t win even a single game.

Serena seemed to be doing the same thing in the second set too. With a couple of successive breakthroughs (in the 1^st and the 3^rd game), she raced to a lead of 4-0 and it seemed that she would secure double bagel, but, that wasn’t the case to be.

Schiavone managed to hold her serve in the 5^th game and made sure that she would not have to suffer the humiliation of double bagel defeat.

However, that remained the only game to be won by Schiavone in the match. With a serve hold in the 6^th game and then, with a breakthrough in the 7^th game, Serena clinched the second set by 6-1 and moved into the next round.

Francesca Schiavone will face Alize Cornet of France in the quarter final of the Grand Prix de SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem.

This season has been a tough one for Schiavone. She hasn’t managed to reach the semi finals in any tournament this season.

Her best performance thus far in the ongoing season was in the tournament in Acapulco where she had reached the final 8. She had been defeated by Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain in the quarter finals there.

She has reached the quarter finals here at Morocco as well and she would want to go all the way this time around.

Schiavone has won her first couple of matches in this tournament quite comfortably. In the first round, she took on Petra Martic of Croatia and defeated her in the straight sets by 7-6, 6-4.

In the second round, Schiavone had another easy win over the Romanian player Simona Halep.

On the other hand, Cornet had a mixed last season, but, in this season, she hasn’t played that badly. She has been consistent and has played well in most of the tournaments.

In this tournament, Cornet started with a dominating victory over the local player Fatima El Allami in the first round. However, in the following round, she was tested a bit by Karin Knapp of Italy. She lost the first set by 1-6 in that match, but, then, came back to win the next two sets.

Schiavone has a dominating record against Cornet. She has played against the Frenchwoman 8 times before and has defeated her 7 times.

However, Cornet’s current world ranking is a bit better than Schiavone. She is at no. 33, while, Schiavone is at no. 48.

So, quite clearly, some of the stats are in Schiavone’s favour, while, the others are in the favour of Cornet. So, it’s hard to tell who will be the favourite in tomorrow’s match. It’s a 50-50 kind of a clash.