Wawrinka, Muguruza out in 2nd round, heat soars in Australia

The heat peaked during Djokovic’s 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 win. “I’m still not 100%, but building”. “It had to come eventually, this injury has been with me for a while, it escalated previous year and I had to take some time off”.

Monfils seemed on his way to break the spell as he seized on the three break points he had to seal the first set, which saw his serve broken twice.

Djokovic, who won four of the five Australian titles between 2011 and ’16 before his shocking second-round exit previous year, extended his career head-to-head domination over Monfils to 15-0.

The three-time Grand Slam victor crashed out in straight sets to American Tennys Sandgren, ranked 97th in the world. Djokovic broke for 5-3 before sealing the set on serve.

Monfils hung in for the first seven games of the second set but was clearly in distress.

Six-times champion Novak Djokovic emerged from the Rod Laver Arena furnace and into the third round of the Australian Open after putting suffering Gael Monfils out of his misery with a scrappy victory on Thursday. He finally got what he wanted on his fourth match point.

Both players are into the third round action at Melbourne Park.

Gunning for a seventh Australian Open title, he was glad to be back at the coal face, having missed the competitive edge.

“You don’t want to be in defence too much”.

To be fair, it was still 39 degrees when Barty walked on court at 7.06pm (AEST), but the temperature eased slightly through the match as the 18th seed gradually took control to win 5-7 6-4 6-1. The Swiss superstar looked undercooked and lost the match 6-2, 6-1, 6-4.

‘I think it was a bit tougher for him [the umpire] today.

Defending champion Roger Federer needed to knuckle down to end the feisty challenge of hard-hitting German Jan-Lennard Struff with a 6-4 6-4 7-6 (4) win in the second round of the Australian Open on Thursday.

“I am happy I didn’t have to go from night to day and back to night, so I was happy to stay in the same rhythm”.

Germany’s Andrea Petkovic said that heat and fatigue had sapped her mental game, after she was knocked out by the United States’ Lauren Davis following a marathon first match and a doubles.

“Because you don’t feel your limits and you’re always pushing them, especially me, I would need to crawl on the court to give up”. They are so strong. I think that was a good test for him.

Meanwhile, Czech Republic’s Karolina Pliskova beat Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-1, 6-1 in just 44 minutes to set up the third round clash with the her compatriot Lucie Safarova, who defeated the Romanian Sorana Cirstea 6-2, 6-4 in the second round. The 19th seeded Berdych took two hours and 31 minutes to overcome World No.71 Garcia-Lopez.

Simona Halep’s ankle injury did not appear to hamper her, the world number one beating Eugenie Bouchard 6-2 6-2, but Johanna Konta, Elena Vesnina and Mirjana Lucic-Baroni were the other seeds to make early exits.

Pera, who is taking part in her maiden Grand Slam event, qualified as a lucky loser.