Defending champion Sofia Kenin exited the Australian Open in tears on Thursday even as World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty negotiated a sticky moment to reach the third round.
World No. 2 Rafael Nadal shrugged off any lingering back soreness to storm past qualifier Michael Mmoh for the loss of just seven games, brushing off a bizarre incident that saw a fan thrown out.
Svitolina beats Gauff
Teenage sensation Coco Gauff lost to Elina Svitolina, Stefanos Tsitsipas went the distance with Thanasi Kokkinakis and Fabio Fognini also needed five sets against fellow Italian Salvatore Caruso — a match that ended in a furious row.
Self-imposed pressure has weighed heavily on Kenin, 22, the World No. 4 who was defending a Grand Slam title for the first time. And after an emotional first-up win over wild-card Maddison Inglis, Kenin met her match in the in-form Estonian Kaia Kanepi, who won 6-3, 6-2.
Playing with her left thigh heavily strapped, the top-seeded Barty twice failed to serve out the win before ousting her 387th-ranked compatriot Daria Gavrilova 6-1, 7-6(7).
Rare sight
Nadal has been struggling with tightness in his lower back since arriving in Australia, but showed few signs of it on Thursday. He crushed Mmoh 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 in a match interrupted in the second set when a woman was ejected for heckling and directing rude gestures at him.
Nadal took it in his stride, grinning and playing football with the ball while he waited. Asked afterwards whether he knew her, he replied: "No, and honestly I don't want to."
But the most combustible match was between Fognini and Caruso, as the two Italians had to be separated by a tournament official during a heated argument after the 16th seed's four-hour, 4-6, 6-2, 2-6, 6-3, 7-6(12) win.
But rather than the traditional polite congratulations, the pair started arguing furiously in Italian, while gesturing and pointing. Eventually the court supervisor had to step in between them.
Divij, Ankita bow out
Ankita Raina , the third Indian woman to secure a place in the main draw of a Grand Slam event, and her partner Mihaela Buzarnecu of Romania lost 3-6, 0-6 in just one hour and 17 minutes to Australian wild-card pair of Olivia Gadecki and Belinda Woolcock. Divij Sharan and Slovakian partner Igor Zelenay lost 1-6, 4-6 to the German pair of Yannick Hanfmann and Kevin Krawietz.
