Merciless, brutal, one-sided, an embarrassment. These are the words that spring to mind after Serena Williams clinched her 10th grand slam singles title in the Australian Open, slicing apart the No.3 player in the world, Dinara Safina, as another women's final that supposedly showcases the best, failed to come up to the standard expected of such an occasion.

That was not Williams' fault. The woman who last week celebrated becoming the wealthiest woman ever to play sport - her $22,753575, surpassed that of Annika Sorenstam, the golfer (and you can add another $1.4 million to that for her victory yesterday) - now stands proudly at the top of the women's game, in ranking and personality terms.

There was really nothing that Safina, the younger sister of Marat Safin, could do on Rod Laver Arena to touch her and was soundly smacked, 6-0, 6-3. Grooved off the ground, thumping winners to all corners of the court, this was yet another of the mismatches that have plagued the women's game at grand slam final level for too long. The Williams sisters are just too darn good, and they won the doubles title as well, as if to emphasise the fact. It was suggested afterwards that Serena had beeen prevented entering the women's locker room earlier in the day because she couldn't find her player accreditation pass - the pity for Safina was that it did not stay missing until well past eight in the evening.

It is difficult to recall the last time Serena looked so pleased with herself, and with every justification. Of her 13 grand slam finals, she has only ever lost three - two to Venus, her sister, and one to Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon in 2004 - a statistic that goes to the depth of her fighting qualities. Once she gets this far, Serena is usually so totally grooved and in touch with her game, she is nigh-on unstoppable.

Safina has lost both of her two grand slam finals, to Ana Ivanovic in Paris last spring and now on this, a humid night in Melbourne. Frankly she was like a lost soul out there, totally unable to come to terms with the Williams' power off the ground, deserted by her serve (three double faults in the first game set an unhappy trend) and simply unable to cover the ground required to put Serena off balance.

The authorities will have been squirming in their presidential seats. Time and again these matches have failed to live up to expectations and the fact that this came the night after Rafael Nadal's glorious match against Fernando Verdasco in the men's semi finals meant this annihilation took a lot of swallowing. The debate about equal prize money will be raised again - an uncomfortable one for the grand slams who have boxed themselves into a corner they cannot get out of.

Take nothing away from Serena, she can only beat the opposition put in front of her and in a fourteen-year career, she has won every major title, grand slams included - that is 33 singles and 15 doubles. That is quite some achievement and justly celebrated in front of a stadium which, to Tennis Australia's chagrin, was nowhere near full at the start and had thinned appreciably by the time the cups were being handed out.