The games at the Australian Open continued tonight and this morning (between Wednesday and Thursday) when already in the second round a number of big surprises were recorded, especially for the women. Third-ranked Garbinia Mugurosa finished her way in a very surprising way and alongside her also sixth-ranked Estonian Annette Contebite found herself finishing the tournament very quickly.
Mugurosa surrendered to Frenchman Elise Corne, who recorded 3: 6 and 3: 6 in an hour and 27 minutes. This is overall the sixth time in Corne’s career that she has reached the third round in Australia out of her 17 appearances in the tournament. This is only the tenth time that the 31-year-old tennis player has managed to beat an opponent from the top 10 in the world.
Estonian Contebite was surprised by the young Dane, Clara Tauson, who is considered one of the rising stars of the round. She recorded 2: 6 and 4: 6 and achieved the first victory of her career against a ranked 10th in the world. This is the first time in her career that she will appear in the third round of the Australian Championship or of the Grand Slam in general.
The one who avoided the surprise is the second-ranked in the world, Arena Sablanca, who, although she lost in the first system to the Chinese Xinio Wang ranked 100th, but recovered with 6: 1, 4: 6 and 2: 6 in the end. The Belarusian will of course continue to the third round and can probably benefit from the fact that two top 10 ranked found themselves out today.
And not only that, Elena Rybakina (12) is also out after losing 6: 4 in the first set against Chinese Shui Zhang and retiring when her rival led 0: 1 in the second set. Tamara Zidansk (29) defeated the British Heather Watson 6: 7 (4) and 4: 6 and also Daria Kasatkina (25) in the next round after 2: 6 and 3: 6 over the Polish Magda Lint. Another senior contender who came up is Iga Spiontek from Poland, who defeated the Swedish Rebecca Patterson 2: 6 and 2: 6. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (10) also advanced to the third round with 2: 6 and 2: 6 over the retired Australian Samantha Stosur.
For such men, one significant surprise was recorded when Argentine Diego Schwartzman (13) found himself ousted by local Christopher O’Connell. The Australian recorded 6: 7, 4: 6 and 4: 6 on the way to the third round at the end of a game that lasted three hours and seven minutes. Roberto Bautista-Agout (15) avoided a surprise and walked in front of German Philipp Kolschreiber with a very smooth 1: 6, 0: 6 and 3: 6.
Andy Murray finished his way to the Australian Championships as early as the second round after being defeated 3-0 by Japanese Taro Daniel (120 in the world) who advanced from the qualifiers. The Briton was eliminated after 6: 4, 6: 4 and 6: 4 in less than three hours, while his opponent qualified for the third round of the Grand Slam for the first time in his career.
A senior ranked who progressed without a problem to the next stage was the Russian Andrei Rublev (5), who defeated Lithuanian Ricards Brankis 4: 6, 2: 6 and 0: 6 in an hour and 47 minutes. Stefanos Tsitsipas (4) dropped a battle in a game where the first two sets were decided only by a tiebreaker, but in the end the Greek defeated Argentine Sebastian Baas of Argentina 6: 7 (1), 7: 6 (5), 3: 6 and 4: 6.
Croatian Marin Cilic (27) advanced to the next stage after ousting Norbert Gombos with 2: 6, 3: 6, 6: 3 and 6: 7, while Bulgarian Gregor Dimitrov (26) was eliminated after a 6: 4, 6 loss : 4, 6: 7 (4) and 7: 6 (2) to Benoit Perr of France (56). Richard Gasca will also not be in the next round after retiring from Boutique van de Zandlops with the Dutchman leading 6-4, 0-6 and 0-4.