Angelique Kerber is just one match into her Australian Open warm-up and she's already enjoying herself much more than last year.
That match was a tough straight-sets victory over Belgium's rising star Elise Mertens at the Hopman Cup on Monday night.
Both sets went to tiebreaks before Kerber won 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (7-1).
Kerber is in Perth with a world ranking of 21. When she arrived in Australia last summer, she was the No.1 player in the world and also the defending Open champion, as well as the reigning US Open champion.
She had terrible time, winning only one match at the Brisbane International before losing in the first round in Sydney and being bundled out the year's opening grand slam in the round of 16 by American CoCo Vandeweghe.
Her year didn't get much better. She also fell in the round of 16 at
Wimbledon and didn't get beyond the opening day at either Roland Garros nor the US Open.
So it was with glee that Kerber said goodbye to 2017.
"Last year was a completely different year; I learnt a lot," she said. "Now I am trying not to look back. We are in 2018 and I'm really happy about that. It's a fresh start and I said goodbye to 2017."
"It's a little bit different than last year.
"I am not focusing too much on everything, I don't have much to defend. The focus is more on my game, on every single match, and not looking too far ahead to the rankings and points.
"It is better; focusing on the tennis again."
Kerber's next match in Perth is against Canada's Eugenie Bouchard on Wednesday.
Bouchard has won four of six encounters against Kerber, including four of their past five and their only match of 2017, in Madrid in May when Kerber retired when 6-3 5-0 down.
Before then, she will continue to work hard on her serve with new coach Wim Fissette, who has previously helped out Kim Clijsters, Simona Halep, Victoria Azarenka and Johanna Konta.
Kerber's serve wasn't great against world No.36 Mertens. She had her serve broken six times and sent down the same number of double faults.
She even threw in a couple of rare foot faults.
"I don't know why," she said. "I changed my serve a little bit in the last few weeks. I will try to not repeat it again and trying to focus more on this part."
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