Serena, Sharapova Cruise While Kvitova Falls in Aussie Second Round
After a tricky first-round opponent in powerful Camila Giorgi, world number one and defending champion Serena Williams blew past Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-Wei 6-1, 6-2 on Wednesday to reach the Australian Open third-round.
“She’s definitely a tricky opponent,” said Serena afterwards. “It was a good matchup for me to play someone who can hit any shot at any time, and anywhere on the court. I kind of needed that; there’ve been some things I worked on over the offseason, so it worked out for me today.”
Serena won 85 percent of her first serve points and ripped 26 winners to roll in straight sets. She will next take on Russian Daria Kasatkina, who defeated Serena’s older sister Venus at the ASB Classic two weeks ago.
Kasatkina beat Croatia’s Ana Konjuh 6-4, 6-3 in her second round match on Wednesday.
2008 champion Maria Sharapova, playing in her second match of the season, moved past Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus 6-2, 6-1.
The first set saw little holds of serve with six breaks of serve, four of which going to Sharapova who converted on each of her break chances in the opener. In the second set, though, Sharapova found rhythm on her own serve, not surrendering a single break point chance and converted on two break point opportunities to push through.
“I had an opponent that I had never played before today; that’s always tricky,” said Sharapova. “But I’m happy that I got through.”
Sharapova will take on American Lauren Davis in the third-round. Davis took the first set from Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova 7-6(7) before Rybarikova retired.
In the best matchup of the second round, fourth-seed Agnieszka Radwanska took on former top 5 player Eugenie Bouchard. While many thought this would be a highly-competitive contest, Radwanska continued her outstanding start to 2016 with a 6-4, 6-2 triumph over Bouchard.
“That was a great challenge for me to play somebody like Eugenie in the second round. Definitely not an easy draw,” said Radwanska. “But I think I was doing everything right today. I hadn’t played against her for awhile, but I think she’s definitely playing better now than last season. I think she’s on a good way to come back, and she’s definitely playing much better tennis out there.”
Radwanska will take on Puerto Rico’s Monica Puig in the third-round. Puig came back from a set down to knock out Czech Kristyna Pliskova 4-6, 7-6(6), 9-7.
In the day’s biggest upset, Australia’s Daria Gavrilova ousted sixth-seeded Czech Petra Kvitova 6-4, 6-4.
Gavrilova converted on five of her six break point chances to move past Kvitova.
Up next for the Australian is the 28th seed from France, Kristina Mladenovic, who moved past American Nicole Gibbs 6-1, 7-6(4) on Wednesday.
Rounding out the rest of Wednesday’s winners on the women’s side were: 10th seed Carla Suarez-Navarro, 12th seed Belinda Bencic, 13th seed Roberta Vinci, Margarita Gasparyan, Yulia Putintseva, Kateryna Bondarenko, Anna-Lena Friedsam and Elizaveta Kulichkova.
