A 'mentally fried' Serena Williams rallies and advances at Sony Open

Serena Williams (top) defeated Dominika Cibulkova 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 Monday. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

Serena Williams came out heavy-footed and flat in her fourth round match against Dominika Cibulkova at the Sony Open Monday and found herself down 6-2, 4-1 to the diminutive and talented Slovakian before quickly rebounding to win 11 of the last 13 games and prevail 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Through the first set, Serena hit 18 unforced errors to a mere two winners and her serves were clocking well below 90 mph. This from a player who can regularly serve over 115mph and usually has at least two winners before the end of the first game of the match? Something was up.

"Mentally I was just fried and I was just thinking about everything but tennis," Serena told reporters. "Then I just had to pull myself back together."

She spent the first set of the match struggling with an internal dialogue -- literally. Asked if there are "two Serenas" sometimes, she said yes.

"I'm talking to myself inside and she's talking back and giving me lip. I give her a little attitude, and then I tell her she sucks and she tells me to shut up. We get into it a little bit," she said with a laugh. "Then we get along."

Once she settled down into the match, the comeback was perfunctory. We've seen this happen frequently with Serena, whose high octane game can erase a slow start in a flash. According to the WTA's stats guru, Kevin Fischer, Serena is 21-20 since 2009 when losing the first set.

https://twitter.com/Kfish_WTA/status/316266336789622784

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