London:  As Roland Garros is to Sam Stosur, so Wimbledon has been for her second-round opponent, Sabine Lisicki. The grand slam venue where lead-up results are not necessarily relevant, but history often acts as a more reliable formguide.

Buoyed by strong claycourt performances that culminated in her first major semi-final in four years at the recent French Open, Stosur's solid 7-5, 6-3 opening round win over Magda Linette at the All England Club has delivered a follow-up with an opponent whose record here far exceeds those in Melbourne, Paris and, to a lesser degree, New York.

Stosur said of Lisiki: "It's no doubt this is a tournament she feels very comfortable at, no matter kind of what she's been doing in the lead-up.

"I don't know what she did actually in the grass court tournaments before this one, but she probably hasn't had a fantastic year so far. But I'm sure when she walks through the gates here she probably feels like she's No. 1 in the world."

Instead, the German is a distant 81st, having been as high as 12th in 2012. The following year, she reached the Wimbledon final, where she lost tearfully to Marion Bartoli, and has three other quarter-finals and one semi to her name on the south-west London grass.

Stosur, in contrast, has never passed the third round in 13 attempts at the only major where she has a losing record, one that now stands at 12-13. But she also has a nothing-to-lose mentality that may work in her favour this time, the 32-year-old appearing calm and relaxed in her 67-minute opening against 92nd-ranked Linette.

"I think I played a really decent level the whole way through," Stosur said. "There was just one little patch with those double faults. Apart from that, I felt like I was, yeah, relatively in control of what was going on. Able to keep that going. Overall pretty happy.

"There's always things you want to get a little bit better at. For the most part I thought I played well and really solid. I served well. A couple of little things on my forehand. Apart from that, I was happy."

Despite a 5-2 head-to-head lead that includes a 2-1 advantage on grass, the Queenslander is also wary of Lisicki, and of a serve that vies for big-weapon status with only a handful in the game, including her own.

"She plays big and hits the ball hard. She absolutely plays aggressive," Stosur said. "If she's on that day, you have got to be really willing to fight fire with fire and go after it, and, yeah, not kind of feel like you're going to get dictated to.

"Because against someone like her with a game like she's got, it's very easy to feel under the pump and under pressure all the time if she's playing well. You have to be aware of that and balance out the patience and consistency with your own aggression."

Lisicki agreed grass was more beneficial to her game than to Stosur's, but wth this caveat: "Probably, you know. But at the end of the day when you serve well on this surface, it's a big advantage, yeah."

There will be no secrets, certainly. "We know each other really well.  We played doubles here final together (in 2011) and we had a great match in 2013, actually," Lisicki said. "I have to be ready for the great serve, but I'm looking forward to the challenge."