Australian Open: Vekic upsets 18th seed Samsonova to reach third round

Croat Donna Vekic reached the third round of the Australian Open by beating Russian Liudmila Samsonova, the No 18 seed, 6-3, 6-0 at Melbourne Park on Thursday.

Vekic, a former top 20 player now ranked No 64, will play the winner of the match between Spaniard Nuria Parrizas Diaz and Russian Anastasia Potapova next.

The Croatian has been working with Pam Shriver, a former world No 3 in singles and world No 1 in doubles.

Ahead of her win on Thursday, the Croat edged out Russian qualifier Oksana Selekhmeteva (6-2, 2-6, 7-6 (7)).

Samsonova, ranked No 20, had beaten against Italian Jasmine Paolini (6-2, 6-4) in the first round.

Australian Open (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
• Leylah Fernandez vs. Caroline Garcia
• Shuai Zhang vs. Petra Martic
• Varvara Gracheva vs. Lucrezia Stefanini
• Kimberly Birrell vs. Linda Fruhvirtova
• Yulia Putintseva vs. Karolina Pliskova
• Anna Karolina Schmiedlova vs. Camila Giorgi
• Irina-Camelia Begu vs. Laura Siegemund
• Magda Linette beat Anett Kontaveit (16): 3-6, 6-3, 6-4
• Elise Mertens (26) beat Lauren Davis: 6-4, 6-3
• Aryna Sabalenka (5) beat Shelby Rogers: 6-3, 6-1
• Ekaterina Alexandrova (19) beat Taylor Townsend (WC): 1-6, 6-2, 6-3
• Katie Volynets (Q) beat Veronika Kudermetova (9): 6-4, 2-6, 6-2
• 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