Victoria Azarenka underlined her credentials as an Australian Open contender, if not a crowd favourite, with a ruthless 6-1 6-0 demolition of local wildcard Casey Dellacqua in the second round on Wednesday.
The Belarussian's loud grunts inspired a string of mocking imitators in the partisan crowd on Rod Laver Arena but the third seed ignored the jibes to brush aside her opponent in just 57 minutes.
Azarenka, who won the title over a strong field at the Sydney warm-up tournament last week, was simply too sharp, too accurate and too mobile for the 126th ranked Dellacqua.
The 22-year-old, one of four players who could emerge from the year's first grand slam as world number one, pointed a single finger into the night sky after setting up a third-round meeting with Mona Barthel of Germany.
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