Sabalenka storms past Shelby Rogers and into third round

Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, the No 5 seed, defeated American Shelby Rogers 6-3, 6-1 to move into the third round of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park on Thursday night.

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“She’s such a great player. She always plays really fast and she puts me under pressure,” Sabalenka said after her victory, which took one hour and 27 minutes to complete. “Today, I expected a great level from her. That’s why I stayed focused from the beginning to the end, and probably that’s why I was able to win this one in two sets, but always tough matches against Shelby.”

Sabalenka hit 32 winners against 18 unforced errors, as she stormed back from a 3-1 deficit in the opening set and reeled off 11 of the final 12 games.

Sabalenka, ranked No 5, will face the winner of the match between American Lauren Davis and Belgian Elise Mertens, the No 26 seed, next. Mertens was her doubles partner for many years – the pair won two major doubles titles together.

The Belarusian won against Czech Tereza Martincova (6-1, 6-4) in the previous round.

In the first round, Rogers, ranked No 51, beat Dutch qualifier Arianne Hartono (6-4, 6-3).

Melbourne (Grand Slam), other second-round results (Melbourne Park, hard, USD 24.297.942, most recent results first):

• Marketa Vondrousova vs. Ons Jabeur
• Claire Liu vs. Belinda Bencic
• Nuria Parrizas Diaz vs. Anastasia Potapova
• Varvara Gracheva vs. Lucrezia Stefanini
• Kimberly Birrell vs. Linda Fruhvirtova
• Donna Vekic vs. Liudmila Samsonova
• Shuai Zhang vs. Petra Martic
• Yulia Putintseva vs. Karolina Pliskova
• Leylah Fernandez vs. Caroline Garcia
• Irina-Camelia Begu vs. Laura Siegemund
• Anna Karolina Schmiedlova vs. Camila Giorgi
• Anett Kontaveit vs. Magda Linette
• Lauren Davis vs. Elise Mertens
• Taylor Townsend vs. Ekaterina Alexandrova: thursday
• Katie Volynets vs. Veronika Kudermetova: thursday
• Victoria Azarenka (24) beat Nadia Podoroska: 6-1, 6-0
• Danielle Collins (13) beat Karolina Muchova: 6-7 (1), 6-2, 7-6 (6)
• Bernarda Pera beat Qinwen Zheng (29): 6-4, 6-4
• Marta Kostyuk beat Olivia Gadecki (WC): 6-2, 6-1
• Elena Rybakina (22) beat Kaja Juvan: 6-2, 6-1
• Coco Gauff (7) beat Emma Raducanu: 6-3, 7-6 (4)
• Kateryna Baindl beat Catherine McNally: 6-1, 7-6 (4)
• Madison Keys (10) beat Xinyu Wang: 6-3, 6-2
• Barbora Krejcikova (20) beat Clara Burel (Q): 6-4, 6-1
• Cristina Bucsa (Q) beat Bianca Andreescu: 2-6, 7-6 (7), 6-4
• Lin Zhu beat Jil Teichmann (32): 6-2, 6-2
• Jelena Ostapenko (17) beat Anna Bondar: 7-6 (5), 5-7, 6-0
• Anhelina Kalinina beat Petra Kvitova (15): 7-5, 6-4
• Jessica Pegula (3) beat Aliaksandra Sasnovich: 6-2, 7-6 (5)
• Maria Sakkari (6) beat Diana Shnaider (Q): 3-6, 7-5, 6-3
• Iga Swiatek (1) beat Camila Osorio: 6-2, 6-3