No. 3 ranked 31-year-old Serena Williams of the USA says she is playing some of her best tennis, and she backed up her statement with an easy win over 36th ranked Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia on Saturday in the Brisbane International final, 6-2, 6-1.

Serena has won 35 of her past 36 matches, including titles at Wimbledon, the Olympics, the U.S. Open, and season-ending WTA championships and now the fist event of 2013. Who an argue with a record like that?

Serena was quoted on Tennis.com: “I was looking at a lot of old matches on YouTube, and I feel like right now I’m playing some of my best tennis. I feel like I want to do better and play better still, and I’ve always felt like I could play better. I really think starting in 2011, the summer, I really started being more calm on the court and just relaxing more, if it’s possible for me to relax. That whole summer where I won a few tournaments and got to the final of the

[U.S.] Open, I was just trying to be calm. I feel better when I’m more calm. When I’m crazy like I was in Paris [when she lost in the first round of Roland Garros to Virginie Razzano], as you can see, it doesn’t do great for me.”

She has won the Australian Open five times already, and with the season’s first major a little more than a week away, she is in good shape to add another title in Melbourne.

In a tournament featuring eight of the world’s top 10 female players, not one match in Brisbane featured two seeded players because of a series of injuries and upsets. Second-ranked Maria Sharapova withdrew because of an injured collarbone, and Pavlyuchenkova ousted a pair of top-10 players: the 2011 Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in the second round and fourth-seeded Angelique Kerber in the quarterfinals.

Williams missed a chance to extend her 11-1 record against top-ranked Victoria Azarenka, who withdrew a half-hour before their scheduled semifinal Friday because of an infected toe.