Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka continues to defend her title after a second-round victory over American Madison Brengle with 2-0 (6:0, 6:4). Thus, the Japanese player came close to a possible clash with the leader in the world rankings for women Ashleigh Barty in the fourth round of the tournament.
Before that, the 24-year-old Japanese will meet the American Amanda Anisimova in the third round. The 31-year-old Madison Brengle won only 9 points in the first set against Naomi Osaka, which demonstrated great service and did not allow her opponent to reach break points. It took Naomi Osaka just 65 minutes to finish the game on her first match ball.
Amanda Anisimova from the USA defeated the Swiss Belinda Bencic with 2-0 (6:2, 7:5) on her way to the third round in Melbourne. The two stayed on the court for only 90 minutes, and 20-year-old Amanda Anisimova, who is competing in her 12th Grand Slam tournament, broke the service of the Olympics champion Belinda Bencic three times in the first set and twice in the second.
The American Madison Keys qualified for the second round, beating Jaqueline Cristian from Romania with 2-0 (6:2, 7:5) in 90 minutes of play. The former number seven in the world, who dropped to 87th place in the rankings after the disappointing 2021, hopes to improve on her performance from seven years ago when she reached the semifinals. She will play against Chinese Wang Qiang in the next round.
Czech Barbora Krejcikova eliminated another Chinese Xiyu Wang with 2-0 (6:2, 6:3) and will face Jelena Ostapenko from Latvia in the third round, who defeated Alison Riske of the United States with 2-1 (4:6, 6:2, 6:4). In the last match of the program for the day, the Greek Maria Sakkari defeated Qinwen Zheng from China with 2-0 (6:1, 6:4) in an hour and 28 minutes of play. The Chinese tennis player won the first game, but Maria Sakkari won the next six to take a one-set lead. In the second she took the lead with 3:0, allowed a breakthrough for 4:5, but returned the breakthrough for 6:4, ending the match in two sets.
