World No.2 Karolina Pliskova has continued her unbeaten summer down under to move into the second round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Pliskova overcame a second-set challenge from Kristina Mladenovic to see off the French Fed Cup hero 6-1 7-5 in one hour and 24 minutes on Tuesday.
The winner of the season-opening Brisbane International, where she knocked over reigning Open champion Naomi Osaka in the semi-finals, second-seeded Pliskova seemed to be heading toward a comfortable win after taking the first five games of the match.
But Mladenovic, who crashed Australia’s Fed Cup final party in November with victory over Ashleigh Barty followed by success in the deciding doubles rubber in Perth, made a stand on Rod Laver Arena.
Pliskova, though, held firm and broke Mladenovic in the 11th game of the second set before serving out the match to set up a potential second-round clash with former Open semi-finalist Coco Vandeweghe.
Playing on a wildcard this year after an injury-plagued 2019 campaign, Vandeweghe was facing German Laura Siegemund in one of 45 women’s matches on a bumper day two schedule.
With half of Monday’s matches washed out, officials were hoping to see a back-log of first-round encounters completed to get the tournament schedule back on track.
Swiss sixth seed Belinda Bencic joined Pliskova in the second round with a 6-3 7-5 defeat of Slovakia’s Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
Bencic next plays either former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko or Russian qualifier Liudmila Samsonova.
Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska, the 23rd seed and runner-up to Ashleigh Barty in Adelaide, continued her hot start to the summer with a 6-1 6-1 win over Slovenian qualifier Kaja Juvan.
The 19-year-old’s reward is a second-round shot at retiring 2018 Open champion Caroline Wozniacki.
But British No.1 Johanna Konta will not be repeating her 2016 charge to the semi-finals after crashing out with a 6-4 6-2 loss to crafty Tunisian Ons Jabeur.
It was a disappointing exit for 12th-seeded Konta, who made the semi-finals at Roland Garros last year as well as the quarters at Wimbledon and the US Open before a knee injury cut her season short.
In other early results, Greek 22nd seed Maria Sakkari thrashed Russia’s Margarita Gasparyan 6-2 6-2 and Slovenian Polona Hercog set up a showdown with Barty with a 6-3 6-3 win over Swede Rebecca Peterson.
