Australian Open 2012, Day 2: Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams, Both Andys All Advance

Serena Williams finished the latest match of Day 2 with an easy 6-3, 6-2 win over Tamira Paszek in the 2012 Australian Open. The match took just over 45 minutes of play as Serena cruised past Paszek to advance to the next round in straight sets.

Serena is ranked the 12th-best women's tennis player in the world and picked up 12 aces and just a single double fault in the match. After just one round of play, Serena also leads all women in aces so far with the 12 she picked up against Paszek. In the second round, Serena Williams will take on Barbora Zahlavova Strycova, who defeated Iryna Bremond in straight sets of the opening round 6-0, 6-3. If Williams can get past Strycova, she'll potentially face off against the 17th-ranked Dominika Cibulkova in the third round.

For more on the 2012 Australian Open, visit SB Nation's tennis hub and The Daily Forehand.

The 2012 Australian Open is through two days of action without a major upset in Melbourne, but there have been exciting matches already taking place in the year's first tennis major. American Andy Roddick didn't make his first round match too exhilarating, however, as he advanced in straight sets.

Roddick, the 15th-ranked tennis player in the world, defeated Robin Haase from the Netherlands in three sets (6-3, 6-4, 6-1) to advance on Day 2. The American will face stiff competition in the second round as he matches up with Australia's own Lleyton Hewitt.

Other winners on the second day of action down under included Novak Djokovic and Kim Clijsters, as previously noted, along with Andy Murray picking up a win to make it a good day overall for players named Andy in Australia. The only major upset thus far happened when Australian Samantha Stosur was dismissed in a rather quick match.

For more on the 2012 Australian Open, visit SB Nation's tennis hub and The Daily Forehand.

Andy Murray enters the 2012 Australian Open with the same goal he has always had: winning his first Grand Slam title. After a first-round victory over Ryan Harrison, Murray's quest to do so Down Under is off to a good start.

Harrison, one of a few young American players expected to make up part of the next generation of men's tennis, did win the first set off Murray. But Murray cruised in his final three, winning 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-2 in Hisense Arena.

Murray, who has fought to join Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer in the upper echelon of men's tennis, has a new coach, Ivan Lendl, for 2012. And he is coming off a 2011 season that saw him make the semifinals of every Grand Slam and fall to Djokovic in the final of the 2011 Australian Open.

For more on the 2012 Australian Open, visit SB Nation's tennis hub and The Daily Forehand.

Samantha Stosur may be the top-ranked female Australian tennis player in the world, but her results at the Australian Open aren't evidence of it. And her short stay at the 2012 Australian Open will only magnify that weird disparity.

Stosur was ushered out of the Open on Day 2 in her first round match in straight sets, falling 7-6 (2), 6-3 to Sorana Cirstea. Stosur, the 2011 U.S. Open champion, has yet to make a quarterfinal at the Australian Open in 10 tries.

For her part, Cirstea was equally excited to win and horrified to have done so against Australia's favorite daughter:

"I'm not sure if it's one of my biggest matches, but it feels like that now,'' said Cirstea, who had lost both her previous matches against Stosur.

"Probably the whole country hates me now."

For more on the 2012 Australian Open, visit SB Nation's tennis hub and The Daily Forehand.

The first upset of the tournament: Sam Stosur was defeated in 91 minutes. Stosur lost in her home country's tournament in the opening round to Sorana Cirstea of Romania.

The 2011 U.S. Open champion lost her first set of the new year's first Grand Slam in a tiebreaker. She won only three games in the second set for a 7-6 (2), 6-3 loss. Stosur won just 55 percent of her first serves while Cirstea capitalized on 66 percent of her first serves.

The first set took 49 minutes to complete, just seven minutes longer than the second set, which shows that Stosur didn't just quit.

The loss, however, does add to Stosur's less-than-impeccable record in the year's first Grand Slam. The 27-year-old has won only 14 times in 10 trips to the Aussie Open. She has only gone beyond the third round twice. Last year, she was ousted by Petra Kvitova, who at the time was not a well known player, in the third round. Now, Kvitova is the tournament's No. 2 seed.

Stosur was the tournament's No. 6 seed.

The defending Australian Open champions have advanced to the second round of this year's tournament. No surprise there, as there haven't been any major upsets in the opening round just yet.

Djokovic cruised into the second round after a 6-2, 6-0, 6-0 victory in which the third set was 10 minutes shorter than the 33-minute second set.

Clijsters first-round match wasn't a breeze like Djokovic's, but she did win 7-5, 6-1 against Maria Joao Koehler. The match took an hour and eight minutes.

Then there's Petra Kvitova. The Czech player started making headlines last year when she ousted Sam Stosur in the third round before making it to the final eight. A year later, Kvitova is the tournament's No. 2 seed and breezed through her first match 6-2, 6-0.

From the Australian Open's official site:

"It was [a] surprise for me what I did last year, nobody knows that I could be No.2 in the world," she said.

"Everybody [is] saying soon I'll be No.1 in the WTA ranking, but you never know."

No. 4 seeded Maria Sharapova also won easily in a 58-minute 6-0, 6-1 victory over Gisela Dulko.

The last year has been a difficult one for 12-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams. She was unable to play in the 2011 Australian Open due to a foot injury and was unable to win any of the subsequent Grand Slams. She made it to the final of the 2011 U.S. Open, but that match against Samantha Stosur will be more remembered for Williams' verbal abuse of the chair umpire than the play of either player. She anticipated coming into the 2012 Australian Open healthy and ready to compete for a title, but suffered a setback in early January.

While playing in the Brisbane Open two weeks ago, Williams suffered a sprained ankle in her match against Daniela Hantuchova. She finished and won the match while injured, but was forced to withdraw from the tournament in the semifinals. She's currently healthy enough to play, but her sprained ankle still requires constant treatment and it wouldn't be surprising to see Williams at less than her absolute best.

Williams has played just two matches since that U.S. Open final loss, and she didn't get the easiest possible draw. She takes on Tamira Paszek on Day 2, a 2011 Wimbledon quarterfinalist currently ranked No. 43 in the world. Williams will be favored to win, but it will be interesting to see how her ankle and lack of recent matches affects her.