Aryna Sabalenka and Coco Gauff were among the first winners of the Australian Open on Wednesday, with the No. 1 and No. 3 seeds dropping just four games each to advance to Round 3.
I never focus on the past. It doesn’t matter what the mutual confrontation looks like. It’s always a new competition, always a new battle. Every player gets better and improves. And you know, when you play against the highest ranked player, you have nothing to lose, so you play more freely, so they always put up the best fight, which I like. It’s a great challenge for me. Aryna Sabalenka
World No. 1 Sabalenka overcame a brief hiccup in the middle of the match to deny Chinese qualifier Bai Zhuoxuan 6-3 6-1, while Gauff cruised past Serbia’s Olga Danilovic 6-2 6-2.
“She really stepped it up in the first set, and for a minute I thought, ‘What do I do? She’s crushing it,'” Sabalenka said in her on-court interview. “I’m so happy that I was able to close out that set. I think it gave me a little more confidence that my game was there… I’m super happy with the win.”
The top-ranked Sabalenka has added new weapons to her already impressive arsenal, deploying the occasional serve-and-volley, although not always going to plan, interspersed with drop shots, showing the Belarusian’s increasing patience, and the touch now complementing her usual strength.
“I was very strict in my playing,” she said. “I didn’t want to go a step further, to the right or to the left. I think after struggling with the double-fault situation, I had no choice. I had to open myself up to something new with the serve and then I realized, ‘Okay, maybe this is the way to improve, like by looking for something new every time.’
“I think that, that time in my life, which was actually a disaster [taught] me a lot, and has helped me a lot to improve my game. Today’s serve-and-volley didn’t really work well. I did one, okay, at least one, that’s success. But I do my best, I do my best.”
The 24-year-old Bai, a former world number 83, struggled with injuries last year and arrived in Melbourne ranked 702, belying her ability to chase every ball, which she did to great effect against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the opening round, but against an opponent with the firepower of Sabalenka this was not enough.
Bai was smothered on the back foot early on as he could not generate enough pace to penetrate and found himself 0-5 down with less than 15 minutes to go.
A pair of aces helped her get on the board, and the No. 1’s vice-like grip on the opening set slipped a bit when she was broken while serving for the set.
After fending off 25 of 38 break points in qualifying and the opening round, Bai survived three more in a match lasting almost 10 minutes before Sabalenka stepped up her attack.
“There is always a small gap that can be improved, but I am happy with that in that match [at 5-3 in the first set]I didn’t lose it and was focused,” Sabalenka said. “I tried to say to myself, ‘Okay, one at a time.’ It’s okay. It comes back. You’re okay. Just keep fighting, keep trying’, and I’m happy I did well.”
Serving at another deuce in the 9th game, Sabalenka knocked down a non-refundable serve to earn a 7th set point, cracked another to win the set, and eventually reached the last 32 in an hour and 12 minutes.
Despite making 14 of her 21 unforced errors in the first 9 matches, she finished with 24 winners.
The top seed was not without problems, however, jumping to 4-0 again in the second, but persistence in her game plan kept her on track as she closed out the third round against Anastasia Potapova, who upset 28th seed Emma Raducanu 7-6(3) 6-2.
Sabalenka boasts a flawless 2-0 against Potapova, but won’t rely on that record.
“I never focus on the past. It doesn’t matter what the confrontation looks like,” she said. “It’s always a new match, always a new fight. Every player gets better and improves.
“And you know, when you play against the top ranked player, you have nothing to lose, so you play more freely, so they always put up the best fight, which I like. It’s a great challenge for me.”
Sabalenka has now advanced to the third round of the Australian Open for the sixth year in a row, while she is also 7-0 as of 2026, and has not lost to a player outside the Top 100 in more than three years, most recently losing to former Top 20 player Kaia Kanepi at the 2022 US Open.
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Coco Gauff added her 251st tour-level match victory with a second-round victory over Serbia’s Olga Danilovic in 77 minutes at Margaret Court Arena to reach the third round of the Australian Open for the fourth year in a row, having also added a number of new tools to her arsenal.
“We’ll do two minutes with them at the end of practice, and then, honestly, the drop shot, it’s always a bad idea in my head,” Gauff said in her on-court interview. “And then I make it and I’m like, ‘Okay, that was good.’ I saw Carlos [Alcaraz] Yesterday, and I tried to dropshot like him.
“In my first match I won seven drop shot points, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before. And today I won them all, so it’s a good shot until I miss it. My coach told me, ‘Don’t drop shot at pressure points,’ and I think almost every time I did a drop shot today, I was on a pressure point, and it worked.”
Danilovic, a left-hander, arrived with momentum after a high-profile opening win over Venus Williams, but the No. 3 seed was up to the challenge thanks to the strength of her serve, and when she serves well, all her weapons are powerful.
The American used her delivery, along with her trademark counter-pressing, to race to a 5-0 lead, before Danilovic offered some resistance late in the set, held on to get on the board and then earned her only break of the match, but Gauff broke straight back to pocket the opener.
The second followed a similar path, with Gauff securing an early break and moving into a 3–0 lead before breaking again in the final game to close out the match.
Gauff will next face her compatriot Hailey Baptiste in what will be their second career meeting, and first since 2023.
19-year-old Victoria Mboko, the 17th seed, defeated Caty McNally in straight sets to advance to the Last 32, and a meeting with Clara Tauson
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No. 17 seed Victoria Mboko of Canada reached the third round of her first Australian Open after a straight-sets victory over American Caty McNally, equaling her best performance at a Grand Slam, which was a third-round appearance at Roland-Garros last year.
Mboko has competed in Melbourne with a heavily wrapped right leg and explained it is a preventative measure to keep her knee stable after she hyperextended it last week at the Adelaide International where she reached the final.
The Canadian, ranked No. 16 in his career, sprinted out of the blocks and jumped to a 3-1 lead in the first set before McNally fought back to make it 3-3.
The Canadian broke serve for a second time in the 10th game to close out the set, and although McNally started the second promisingly, breaking serve twice early to race to a 3-0 lead, Mboko stormed back to win six straight games, sealing a 6-4 6-3 win in an hour and 32 minutes, avenging her first-round loss to the American in Austin in 2024 and leveling their head-to-head record at 1-1.
“I really had to fight hard today,” said Mboko. “She was playing really great tennis, so I just tried to put it in my head, take it point by point and not focus too much on the score.
“There [were] Also a lot of Canadians in the audience, that really gave me a lot of motivation and a lot of support, so I was very grateful for that today. I think they really helped me through the match.
McNally was undone by her serve, coughing up six double faults, compared to two for Mboko, and could only muster 26% of her second serve points, while the Canadian won 59% of her points.
14th seed Clara Tauson battled past Polina Kudermetova in three sets on Wednesday to advance to the third round in Melbourne
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The 19-year-old Mboko will face 14th seed Clara Tauson for the first time in her career for a place in the round of 16 of a Grand Slam, after the Dane needed three sets and almost two hours to get past Uzbekistan’s Polina Kudermetova.
After splitting the first two sets, the players went back and forth in the decider, with the Dane twice taking the lead by a break, but each time Kudermetova fought back.
Tauson scored a third break in the 11th game before holding serve to complete a 6-3 3-6 7-5 win, advancing to the Last 32 for the third time in 4 main draw appearances in Melbourne.
“I know she is very aggressive,” Mboko said of the 23-year-old Dane. “She’s a hard hitter and I’m really looking forward to it, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Joining Mboko and Tauson in the third round is Ukrainian 12th seed Elina Svitolina, who hit 28 winners in her 7-5 6-1 victory over Polish qualifier Linda Klimovicova at the John Cain Arena.
“[It’s] It’s never easy playing against someone you don’t know and who is new on tour,” said the three-time AO quarter-finalist. “Linda played very, very well, she hit the ball very big in the first set.”
Svitolina set up a third-round match against 23rd seed Diana Shnaider from Russia, who saved three match points at 4-5 in the second set against Australian wildcard Talia Gibson before triumphing 3-6 7-5 6-1 over the world number 119.
“She played great and honestly it was very hard to believe I could do this [off] and win this match,” said the 21-year-old. “On match point I think: it’s okay, I have to go for it, because if I don’t go for it, she will go for it.
“I’m super happy that I was able to do that. It means a lot to win such matches for the confidence for the next round.”
Diana Shnaider (R) saved 3 match points at 4-5 in the second set against Australian wildcard Talia Gibson and won in 3 sets
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Six Australian women reached the second round of the Australian Open, the most since 1992, and several faced seeded players.
In addition to Shnaider’s win over Gibson, 29th seed American Iva Jovic dispatched wildcard Priscilla Hon 6-1 6-2, while Baptiste cruised past qualifier Storm Hunter 6-2 6-1, and Romania’s Elena-Gabriela Ruse won 6-4 6-4 against Ajla Tomjlanovic.
The remaining two, wildcard Taylah Preston and qualifier Maddison Inglis, both play Thursday, the former meeting No. 13 seed Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic, while the latter faces Germany’s Laura Siegemund.
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