An appreciative "home" crowd helped lift Serbian glamour girl Ana Ivanovic to an impressive straight sets win over Italian veteran Tathiana Garbin at Rod Laver Arena.

The 20-year-old fourth seed, who calls Melbourne her second home thanks to her many relatives in the city, reeled off the opening 10 games on the way to a 6-0 6-3 win in the Australian Open second round.

She said afterwards she was happy to carry the tag "Aussie Ana" after a warm welcome from the crowd, which calmed the nerves caused by playing her first night match on the court.

"Even if I was a little bit nervous the crowd helped me get over it, they were great tonight," Ivanovic said.

"I don't complain (if I'm tagged an Aussie), it's great, I love coming out here and playing.

"Tonight I played an awesome match and I hope I keep up this level as long as possible here."

Garbin, the 30-year-old world No.40, was made to look second-rate in the first set, which lasted just 24 minutes and during which the Italian won just nine of 35 points.

Ivanovic mixed consistency from the baseline with some nice touch from the net, but was hardly stretched.

Such was the Serbian's dominance, Garbin raised her arms to the crowd in mock celebration when she finally registered on the scoreboard by breaking her opponent's serve in the fifth game off the second set.

It was the start of a brief, but overdue, bout of competitiveness for the Italian, who made Ivanovic work for the final games.

Ivanovic needed six match points to close out the contest, two of them on Garbin's serve at 5-2 and then four more on her own serve at 5-3, before she finally clinched it with a big serve down the middle of the court.

It put her through to the third round of what she says is her favourite tournament for the third time in four visits, but she has never made it any further than that.

To do so this time, she will have to defeat Slovenian 28th seed Katarina Srebotnik, who beat newly-adopted Australian Anastasia Rodionova 6-4 6-1.

Ivanovic beat Srebotnik in a three-setter in the quarter-finals of the Sydney International last week and was confident if she maintained her form she could continue to advance in this tournament.

"We had a tough match last week, obviously she has some wins under her belt too, it's going to be a tough match, that's for sure," Ivanovic said.

"But, you know, I really want to focus on my game and try to enjoy it like I did tonight and just hope for the best."

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