Serena stakes her claim

The jockeying for position has begun in earnest.

As Australian Open 2009 began, four women had the potential to secure the world No. 1 ranking. All four needed to win the tournament to guarantee their place on the top rung, and a couple needed their nearest rivals to slip up, but Jelena Jankovic – the present incumbent – Dinara Safina, Serena Williams and Elena Dementieva could all leave Melbourne as the best player in the world.

This situation is nothing new, however. When the US Open started last summer, six women could have been on top of the world by the time the tournament was over. In the end, Jankovic – who had come to New York as the top seed – maintained her position at the top, but it was awfully close.

Now, there are two ways of looking at this state of affairs: either that the women's game is so fiercely competitive that any one of the top women could rule the world, or that we are in a transition phase, and the time is ripe for someone to step up and grab the sport by the scruff of the neck. The sensible money is on the second scenario, as no one has managed to dominate the rankings since Justine Henin hung up her racquet – but it is only a matter of time.

Such mathematical musings mean nothing to Serena Williams, though. The current world No. 2 is more than 1200 ranking points behind Jankovic and just a gnat's whisker ahead of Safina at No. 3, but it means zero to the former champion – Williams is the world No. 1 in her own mind, and that is all that matters.

"Yeah, she's ranked higher than me," Williams said of Jankovic. "But I would feel crazy sitting here being a professional tennis player and saying that someone is better than me. I don't care if I was 1000 in the world, I would still feel like I was the best."

The Best began her campaign in Melbourne facing the hottest day so far – but it is only Day Two, so let's not get carried away here – and the spirited challenge of Meng Yuan from China. Yuan, the world No. 123, was a wildcard entry, claiming her ticket as the highest-ranked player from Asia not to get into the main draw by right. Given her chance to shine, she tried everything she knew to make the most of it. Unfortunately, Williams saw her coming and stopped her in her tracks 6-3 6-2.

At this stage in the competition, it is usually best to ignore the Williams sisters and let them get on with business at their own pace. To quote that old tennis players' cliché: no one can win a Grand Slam in the first week of the tournament, but anyone can lose it. The younger Williams is never at her peak in the early stages – and is sometimes quite alarmingly sloppy – but she knows how to get through the rounds and save her best for the sharp end of the competition.

Williams within sight of a major trophy is a very different animal from the Williams who flaps and fluffs her way through the first few matches. One of the most terrifying competitors on the circuit, she can reduce even the sternest of opposition to a quivering wreck with just a glare or a growl, but in the first round there is no need to be quite so aggressive.

Sure enough, Williams racked up 31 unforced errors to a miserly 10 outright winners and nullified her three aces with four double faults, but she still managed to be back in the locker room after 75 minutes.

"Definitely high unforced errors for me now," was Williams’s assessment of the day's work. "Just my technique was a lot of the factor."

Of considerably more interest was her outfit – a patterned dress that she designed herself. "I love patterns," she said. "I'm really inspired by prints. I remember I was sitting in my apartment and I literally had to go to, like, different pages on the computer and kind of graphically design the pattern. So it was interesting. It was just really weird concepts. We came up with some circles and some lines, just kind of things like that. It was cool."

The pattern was clearly inspired by a pair of 1970s curtains – give her a pair of draw strings and a pelmet and the look would be complete - and the look seemed somehow appropriate. She knows she will need to pull herself together if she is to get her hands on the trophy, but that can be done later in the week.

For the moment, Williams believes that she is the best in the world regardless of what the rankings computer says. Her next task is to prove it to everyone else as the rounds slip by.