Australian Open 2012: Serena Williams beats Barbora Zahlavova Strycova to record 500th career victory It's the ultimate, it's really, really cool. The first thing I asked, of course, is there anyone that achieved a thousand," Williams said. I guess not. I never will get there either, but it's really cool, 500 is a lot of matches to play, let alone to win, so it's pretty cool. My target is just to keep going. I never even thought about 500 till I got to Australia and realised after Brisbane I was at 498 so then I was like, oh, I definitely want to get to 500. Now I don't know what the next milestone is. The victory was also Williams's 210th at a grand slam, putting her equal fourth with sister Venus and Arantxa Sanchez Vicario on the all-time list, behind Martina Navratilova (306), Chris Evert (298) and Steffi Graf (278). Williams had started slowly in her first round match against Tamira Paszek but she raced out of the blocks on Thursday, wrapping up the first set in a quick-fire 22 minutes. She looked headed for an equally emphatic second set before Zahlavova Strycova battled hard, pulling back to 4-5 and holding three game points to get to 5-5. However, Williams stepped up a gear and won the next five points to secure the win, despite her heavy fall in the last game. "She just started playing better and doing different things, which is always expected when you win the first set six-love," Williams said.