Top-seeded Iga Swiatek of Poland rallied from a 4-1 deficit in the final set to defeat Danielle Collins in second-round action Thursday at the Australian Open in Melbourne.
Swiatek swept the last five games for a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 victory against Collins, who announced afterward that 2024 will be her final season on the WTA Tour.
“Oh my god, I was at the airport already,” Swiatek quipped in her on-court interview.
Swiatek stretched her winning streak to 18 matches despite offsetting 35 winners with the same number of unforced errors.
“It wasn’t easy,” the World No. 1 said. “I felt like I had the momentum going and then she started playing suddenly two times faster and I had no idea how to react to that for a couple of games. But I came back, and I thought the only thing I could focus on was myself. I stopped caring how she’s going to play, I just focused on myself.”
Swiatek continues her quest for a fifth grand slam singles title against 19-year-old Czech Linda Noskova in the third round.
No. 3 seed and 2023 Australian Open runner-up Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan and No. 5 Jessica Pegula did not make it out of the second round.
Rybakina fell to Russia’s Anna Blinkova in a record-setting upset. Blinkova prevailed 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (20) after surviving the longest singles tiebreak in grand slam history.
Blinkova fought off six match points in the tiebreak before finally converting her 10th match point to reach the third round in Melbourne for the first time. The 42-point tiebreak broke the previous grand slam singles record of 38, most recently by Ana Bogdan and Lesia Tsurenko at Wimbledon last year.
“This day I will remember for the rest of my life,” Blinkova said after the two-hour, 46-minute victory. “Especially on this court, with this crowd. I will never forget it. It’s the best day of my life so far.”
Pegula’s streak of three straight Australian Open quarterfinals ended with a 6-4, 6-2 loss to France’s Clara Burel, who collected the first top-10 win of her career.
Burel, who needed only 70 minutes to complete the upset, will face unseeded compatriot Oceane Dodin in the third round. Dodin defeated Martina Trevisan of Italy 6-4, 6-4.
Also moving on to the third round were No. 11 seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, No. 12 Qinwen Zheng of China, No. 18 Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, No. 19 Elina Svitolina of Ukraine, No. 26 Jasmine Paolini of Italy and No. 27 Emma Navarro.
Sloane Stephens ousted No. 14 Daria Kasatkina of Russia 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 and China’s Yafan Wang eliminated Emma Raducanu of Great Britain 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.
–Field Level Media
