Rafael Nadal powered past Leonardo Mayer on Wednesday to reach the third round of the Australian Open, while Caroline Wozniacki saved two match points in her comeback win.
Top seed Nadal won his second-round match 6-3, 6-4, 7-6(4), in two hours and 38 minutes and it was a dominant performance from the Spaniard, apart from when he was broken while serving for the match at 5-4 (he went on to win the tiebreak).
Nadal will next face Bosnian 28th seed Damir Dzumhur.
In other notable results in the men’s singles, Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won the last four games of his match against Canadian teenager Denis Shapovalov to claim a 3-6, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6(4), 7-5 victory, Australian Nick Kyrgios beat Serbian journeyman Viktor Troicki 7-5, 6-4, 7-6(2), and Croatia’s sixth seed Marin Cilic saw off Portugal’s 70th-ranked Joao Sousa 6-1, 7-5, 6-2.
In the women’s singles, Danish No 2 seed Wozniacki fought back from 5-1 down in the final set to beat world No 119 Jana Fett 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 in an epic two-hour, 31-minute battle.
‘At 5-1, 40-15, I felt I was one foot out of the tournament,’ admitted Wozniacki. ‘She served a great serve down the “T”, as well. It was just slightly out. I was kind of lucky.’
In other results, fourth seed Elina Svitolina claimed a 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 victory over Katerina Siniakova, French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko ground out a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 win against Duan Yingying, and Julia Goerges’ 15-match unbeaten run ended when she lost 6-4, 6-3 to Alize Cornet.
