Serena Williams once challenged men's player at Australian Open

Sandra Harwitt | Special for USA TODAY Sports

MELBOURNE — There wasn’t much to say about Serena Williams in terms of her ability to turn aside fellow American Nicole Gibbs 6-1, 6-3 in a 63-minute third-round win at the Australian Open on Saturday.

It wasn’t until the next to the last game, with Williams serving for the match at 6-1, 5-2, that the 22-time Grand Slam champion faltered. The second-seeded Williams hadn’t offered Gibbs one single break point opportunity in the match to that point, and all of a sudden there were two. Williams saved the first, but double-faulted to offer the second, and then sailed a backhand wide to lose her serve.

It was not a particularly worrying moment, however, as Williams managed the correction to break Gibbs’ serve in the next game to secure the match.

At times, it is something of a guessing game to figure out what would be a good subject to engage Williams’ attention. There isn’t all that much new to discover regarding the mechanics of her forehand, backhand and trademark serve.

After the Gibbs win it seemed like a good idea to take a walk down memory lane to the first time she and older sister, Venus, played the Australian Open. The year was 1998 and they were quite self-assured young ladies of the teen variety.

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It is not how they fared in the women’s draw that remains in the mind of those that were on hand in Melbourne at the time. However, just to record history properly, Serena reached the second round, while Venus journeyed to the quarterfinals.

What was more intriguing at that particular Australian Open was that the two siblings had something of an inflated understanding of their abilities, developed from their being fresh-faced, and still in need of a few life lessons learned. So they marched themselves into the men’s ATP office to announce rather confidently they were ready to beat any tour player ranked around the Top 200 if someone wanted to take the challenge.

It just so happened that Karsten Braasch of Germany, once a top-40 player, but at the time ranked 203rd, was in ear shot. He thought it would be fun so stepped up to say he’d be happy to take them on.

The date was set and the day arrived. Braasch played a warmup round of golf in the morning, then came to Melbourne Park. The threesome went out to a back court where each sister would have a one-set shot at Braasch. Word had spread around the grounds that the event wsa taking place, which caused tournament officials to restrict admittance to the area to only those with badges.

Braasch would smoke cigarettes and sip beer during the changeovers, and to be honest no longer looked the part of a fit professional athlete. It made no matter. Braasch led 5-0 over Serena before winning the set 6-1, and then posted a 6-2 set victory over Venus.

It was all in good fun, but 19 years later, and a record six Australian Open titles later, Williams, laughingly, insisted recall of the event was not in her memory bank.

“I forgot about that, actually,” she said, smiling, on Saturday. “Gosh, I don’t remember that at all. Gosh, that was forever ago. I don’t remember what year it was.

“I have a terrible memory,” she added, still smiling.

Maturity is a valuable attribute to possess, and Williams now understands that as dominant as she’s been on the women’s tour, when it comes to the guys, she’s pretty much out of their league.

So when asked how she might do against a guy ranked No. 200 today — that would be Noah Rubin, who gave Roger Federer a tough time before the great one ousted the young American qualifier 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 (3) in the second round last Wednesday — she smartly didn’t venture a guess.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m pretty much focused on women’s tennis right now. I have to focus on that.”

And her attention at the moment is a direct gaze at 16th seed Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic, who journeyed to the fourth-round earlier in the day with a 6-2, 7-5 win over 21st-ranked Caroline Garcia of France.

Interestingly, the previous two times they’ve played were also at Grand Slams, but way back in 2012. Williams won both encounters, in the Australian Open second round and Wimbledon first round.

“If it’s Serena, I’m looking forward to it,” said Strycova, whose best Grand Slam result is a quarterfinal showing at 2014 Wimbledon. “That’s why you train. That’s why you work hard, to play these matches on these stages, and against the best one.

“She’s a powerful player, and I’m so small,” Strycova added. “I would have to work hard and I have to run a lot. It’s going to be a tough one, but I am also a tough player to play. I don’t give anything for free, and I fight all the time.”

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