What to Watch on Sunday at the Australian Open

Serena Williams of US returns a shot during her third round match against Daria Kasatkina of Russian Federation on day five of the 2016 Australian Open on January 22, 2016 in Melbourne.

The 17-time major victor and third seed won 6-4 3-6 6-1 6-4 in two hours and 40 minutes under the closed roof on Rod Laver Arena against Grigor Dimitrov, and will face Belgium’s 15th seed David Goffin in the next round.

Allertova beat Konta in the first round at the French Open last summer but though she said she was struggling with a leg injury, Konta was too strong, too aggressive and too good.

It was another confident, dominant performance from Konta, who now plays Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova, a semifinalist here past year and a woman who has been to the quarter-finals on two other occasions.

Bencic is a coming force at Grand Slam level, and a victory over Sharapova at the Australian Open this weekend could propel her to the title. The match started with Osaka actually going a break up against the Belarussian before Azarenka went on to win the next 6 games to take the first set and ease the worry after the first game.

The contrast between the players could could hardly be more stark. Chris Evert followed with 299 and defending Australian Open champion Serena Williams has 287.

However, Bencic has proven her ability to beat the WTA Tour’s elite over the last 12 months, and the fact that the pair have never previously faced one another means that the Swiss stands to benefit from the same element of surprise that helped Sharapova to shock the field at Wimbledon 12 years ago. Federer has now beaten Dimitrov in all five career meetings.

Her momentum continued into the second set, breaking straight away to all but seal the win. Puig didn’t win another game after that.

To give Konta her due, after losing the tie-break she came back at the Czech to level the match, before losing the match, but time has marched on for the British No. 1 whose confidence has grown over the grass and more importantly the autumn hard court season which saw her really make up ground in the rankings.

“I’m very happy to play all these big players”, she said.

World number four Radwanska has not been knocked out before the fourth round in this tournament since 2010 and is now unbeaten in eight matches this year. She plays 10th-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro in a night match on Rod Laver Arena. She pulled out a jar of almond butter and ate a couple spoonfuls before starting the third set. “That’s a definite significant memory”, she said.

As for Sharapova, who won the third-round match 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-0, she sticks to energy bars and gels for her on-court snacking.