It's good and bad in equal parts for Serena

She lost the first set of her match against teenage Bulgarian beanpole Tsvetana Pironkova 7-5, meaning that this was not going to be one of those embarrassing opening-round wipeouts often seen in the women's singles.

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Yet the quality of the opener was dreadful and you wondered how Williams could be the winner of the Australian Open and one of the favourites this fortnight.

It was only when she returned from a rain delay that lasted most of the afternoon to wrap up the last two sets 6-1, 6-1 that there was the reminder that Williams is one of the premier athletes in women's sport.

The country of Nicolas Chauvin — who was actually more a nationalist than a chauvinist in the way we understand it — acted quickly to give parity to the women once Wimbledon announced they were doing the same back in February.

It means that both male and female first-round losers will get 14,290 euros each (£9,680), while the singles winners will receive one million euros (£677,400) each.

Last year the men's and women's victors were paid the same here, but below that the women were slightly down on their male counterparts, with first-round fallers getting £1,000 less, for example.

The levelling of rewards met with a rapturous reception from the leading women players (strictly on principle, of course), as it did at Wimbledon, although the reactions in England and France were very different.

When Wimbledon came out there was virtually a national debate about the citadel of sexism falling, while in France there was a mere Gallic shrug with the media coverage meriting barely a paragraph.

Vive la difference, one might say, and Williams knew she had been forced to work hard at times for a win that keeps her on course to meet defending champion Justine Henin in the quarter-finals.

This is only the American's fifth tournament of the year and her playing schedule is so light she sometimes needs time to play herself in during longer events, particularly in unfriendly conditions.

Pironkova has been contrastingly busy entering events all year and her form belied the fact that she had won only a solitary match in 13 starts. She had even found room to lose to Britain's Anne Keothavong in the Fed Cup last month, but yesterday emerged with honour intact.

In fact the only one-sided match in