Leylah Fernandez eliminated in Australian Open’s 2nd round

Canada’s Leylah Fernandez won’t be moving on to the third round of the Australian Open after losing her match on Wednesday in Melbourne.

American Alycia Parks reached the third round of a Grand Slam singles tournament for the first time with a 7-5, 6-4 win over the 32nd-ranked tennis player from Laval, Que.

Defending champion Aryna Sabalenka and U.S. Open winner Coco Gauff avoided the early Day 4 upsets at the Australian Open to advance to the third round along with 16-year-old Mirra Andreeva.

Three-time major finalist Ons Jabeur lost 6-0, 6-2 in 54 minutes to Andreeva in Wednesday’s opening match on Rod Laver Arena and then 2018 champion Caroline Wozniacki also lost to a young Russian on the No. 3 show court.

Two other 16-year-old players lost their centre court matches to highly-ranked players: No. 10 Beatriz Haddad Maia accounted for Alina Korneeva 6-1, 6-2 and Sabalenka overpowered Brenda Fruhvirtova 6-3, 6-2 to open the night session.

No. 8 Maria Sakkari also didn’t make it past the second round.

WATCH | Fernandez ousted by American Parks:

Gauff extended her winning streak to nine matches at Grand Slams with a 7-6 (6), 6-2 win over fellow American Caroline Dolehide.

Dolehide served for the opening set at 6-5 before U.S. Open champion Gauff took control in the tiebreaker.

“It was really hard,” Gauff said. “If you give her something short, she’s going to punish you for it, so if I could go back and do something I’d change that.”

Gauff will next play Parks.

Jabeur, the runner-up at Wimbledon in each of the past two years, made 24 unforced errors against Andreeva.

“I was really nervous before the match because I’m really inspired by Ons and the way she plays,” said Andreeva, who lost in the final of the junior event here last year. “Before I started on the WTA Tour, I always watched her matches and was always so inspired. Now I had the chance to play against her.”

It is the second successive year that Jabeur has lost in the second round in Melbourne.

Wozniacki led by a set and a break before losing 1-6, 6-4, 6-1 to 20-year-old Maria Tomafeeva, who is making her main draw Grand Slam singles debut.

Wozniacki, who had two children before returning to the WTA Tour last year after 3 1-2 years away, started out on top before Tomafeeva turned the match around with some devastating hitting, including 40 winners.

“I’m really a bit speechless now,” Tomafeeva said. “It was an honour to play here against Caroline. I was going into the match without any expectations. I enjoyed every second of it.”

Wozniacki said the match “slid out of my hands … it’s definitely disappointing,”

Jabeur and Wozniacki played their matches under the roof, on Rod Laver Arena and John Cain Arena, respectively, with rain causing the start of matches on the outside courts to be delayed for three hours. It cleared up and the backlog of matches was limited.

Amanda Anisimova continued her comeback from a seven-month mental health break with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Nadia Podoroska. She’ll next play Paula Badosa, a 6-2, 6-3 winner over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Djokovic challenges heckler

In men’s matches, defending champion Novak Djokovic challenged a heckler to “say that to my face” during the fourth set of a testy second-round win over Alexei Popyrin.

Before the start of the fifth game of the fourth set, Djokovic walked back behind the baseline and engaged with a spectator, gesturing to him to come down and “say that to my face.”

That match had been going for almost three hours by then, and Djokovic had dropped the second set and had to save set points in the third.

After the outburst, he won three straight games to take the match away from the Aussie player en route to a 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (4) 6-3 victory.

After clinching the match on a Popyrin error, he turned around to the crowd again and yelled, pumping his fist to celebrate.

Djokovic has been dealing with a sore wrist and said after his opening match — a four-hour, four-set win over 18-year-old qualifier Dino Prizmic — that he hasn’t been feeling well.

‘I haven’t been playing my best’

He credited Popyrin with bringing out a gameplan to unsettle him.

“I haven’t been playing my best, but still trying to find form,” the 36-year-old Djokovic said. “Particularly in the early rounds, you play players that have nothing to lose. They come out on center court to play their best tennis.

“Hopefully I’ll be able to build this as the tournament progresses.”

Elsewhere, fourth-seeded Jannick Sinner beat Jesper de Jong 6-2, 6-2, 6-2 on Margaret Court Arena, while No. 5 Andrey Rublev also won in straight sets.

Last year’s losing finalist, Stefanos Tsitsipas, also had a tough time against an Aussie with the crowd behind him on an adjacent court.

Tsitsipas wasted match points in the 10th game of the fourth set and then had to save four set points to force a tiebreaker, which he clinched for a 4-6, 7-6 (6), 6-2, 7-6 (4) win over Jordan Thompson.

U.S. Open semifinalist Ben Shelton, the No. 16 seed, advanced 6-4, 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 (5) over local hope Chris O’Connell. He had match points in the 12th game of the fourth set but couldn’t convert, and needed two more in the tiebreaker before advancing.

A quarterfinalist on debut here last year, Shelton said he enjoyed the atmosphere that the home crowd gave O’Connell and said he could still hear the chant “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi” in his sleep.

Australia’s highest-ranked player, No. 10 Alex de Minaur, accounted for Matteo Arnaldi 6-3, 6-0, 6-3. De Minaur will next play Flavio Cobolli, an Italian qualifier who beat Pavel Kotov 7-5, 6-3, 5-7, 6-2. No. 12-seeded Taylor Fritz also advanced.

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Vancouver’s Rebecca Marino drops opening match at Aussie Open

The Canadian was overmatched by fifth-seeded American Jessica Pegula, losing in straight sets in Melbourne.