MELBOURNE, Australia -- As if she finally heard the alarm go off, Serena Williams awoke from lingering jet-lag midway through her second match in the Australian Open and began to look like a champion.

For nearly an hour in a stuporous first set Thursday, the third-seeded Williams played as sloppily as she had in a first-round squeaker. Then suddenly, she couldn't miss as she pressed her attack to win seven straight games in a 7-5, 6-1 victory over Australian Nicole Pratt.

	Serena Williams was much stronger in the second set Thursday as she beat Nicole Pratt.

Meanwhile, top-seeded Martina Hingis moved one step closer to a fourth straight Australian Open women's title as she disposed of Belgium's Justine Henin, 6-3, 6-3, in just over an hour.

In a tournament rich with upsets in the first two rounds, American Kristina Brandi, ranked No. 54, knocked off No. 8 Amanda Coetzer 6-1, 6-3. Five seeded women are out of the draw in four days.

Williams, the 18-year-old U.S. Open champion, arrived in Melbourne without her injured sister, Venus, just a few days before the tournament and hadn't played a match since Oct. 4. The rust and the weariness showed in the first round and most of the first set in the second.

"I'm definitely getting my timing back," Williams said. "I finally played a decent match in the second set. If I want to stay for the whole fortnight, I'm definitely going to have to improve my game, and I know I can."

Williams lost her opening service and fell behind 2-0, though neither player hit a clean winner in the 30 points contested during the 19 minutes of those two wretched games.

They played on in similar mediocrity to 5-5, exchanging unforced errors all the way. Then, finally, Williams looked fresh and quick. She held serve at love, then broke for the set with a snapping volley.

Williams rolled from there, cutting down her unforced errors from 32 in the first set to a mere 10 in the second. More importantly, she began attacking the ball as she had in the U.S. Open last September, pouncing on short shots and going for the lines, and running up her winners to 34 compared to three for Pratt.

Hingis broke Henin's serve three times, including twice in the final set, to improve to 28-2 lifetime at Melbourne. Henin, ranked No. 63 in the world, committed 28 unforced errors.

Hingis is looking to become the first female to win four consecutive titles in Melbourne since Margaret Smith captured seven straight from 1960-66. Her third-round opponent will be 116th-ranked Alicia Molik of Australia, who dumped Slovakia's Karina Habsudova, 6-2, 6-3.

With last year's victory over Amelie Mauresmo of France, Hingis became the first female since Monica Seles in 1991-93 to win three straight Australian Open titles.

Getting through to the third round were No. 6 Barbara Schett, No. 10 Conchita Martinez, No. 12 Sandrine Testud, No. 13 Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and No. 16 Elena Likhovtseva.

One seed who fell late Wednesday was No. 14 Dominique Van Roost. Jennifer Capriati slugged shots as hard as she could until she put away Van Roost 6-1, 4-6, 8-6.