World number one Ash Barty advanced to the round of 16 at the Australian Open in what was a historic day at Melbourne Park.
Ash Barty took to Margret Court Arena, in front of no fans to take on 29th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova on Saturday evening in the third round of the Australian Open.
The Queenslander advanced, recovering from a slow start to defeat her in form opponent 6-2, 6-4 in another impressive display.
"It took some time to adjust, obviously, to get used to her ball, having never played her before, never hit with her. So that was a little adjustment period. Happy in the end that we were able to bring it back onmy terms more often than not," Barty said.
After Barty withdrew from the women's doubles tournament with a leg concern, it was great to see her advance, seemingly unhampered.
"We had to give it time to rest and recover. We are doing all the right things to make it as good as possible. As I said, it's a pretty small tape job that looks a little more dramatic just from wrapping it to try and keep it on. But, no, good. Felt like it didn't affect me at all today. It won't affect me at all. I'll be ready to go no matter what."
Barty will now face American Shelby Rogers in the round of 16 - a player she has played twice, and beaten twice.
"It's always exceptionally tough against Shelby.
She's got the ability to take the game away from you, she's got the ability to give you no control out there. And that's something I'm going to have to try and nullify and neutralize as best I can.
You know, at times it will be me scrapping and fighting. Other times I will be trying to take the more aggressiveoption. Other times, sometimes you have to almost dangle a carrot in a way where you tempt her to try and take some risks. I'll have to do that, try all different things, just as I did last week and just as I've done every time that I've played her. So we'll have to do the best that we can, but understand that that match is not always in my full control," Barty said.
Fellow Australian Alex de Minaur was unable to join Barty in the round of 16, falling to 16th seed Fabio Fognini - who was incredibly impressive in the match following Barty's win on Margret Court Arena.
"Yeah, look, it's obviously not, you know, the result I wanted going in. I think Fabio played a very high-level match throughout the whole entire match. Look, he was too good for me today," de Minaur said.
de Minaur admitted there was not a lot he could do out there to stop the red hot Italian, who claimed an impressive 6-4, 6-3, 6-4 victory.
"I mean, I don't like going out there and feeling like there's not much I can do. You know, it's not a good feeling. So gotta look at things to improve, things to work on. I mean, like I've done my whole career. Same as there's no point sitting and trying to sort out what's next straight away, because, you know, we've got time. I'll do that tomorrow. We'll have a chat. We'll see what plans are. If we stay here for a couple days, if we fly out, all of that. We'll have to wait and see," de Minaur said.
In doubles action, Aussie duo Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis registered their spot in the second round of the men's doubles, defeating Lloyd Harris and Julian Knowles 6-2, 6-4 in 61 minutes.
"Yeah, look, it was a good match for us. I don't know if we've won a match on tour together, but yeah, we talked about this a while ago. We just wanted to play. Hopefully it was in front of some fans, but it wasn't today, but that's all right. Yeah, anytime we can pair up, we just, it's more about just having fun and enjoying each other's company. It's not often we get to do it, so any time we get the chance, we jump on it," Kokkinakis said.
Yeah, we know how to play doubles together. We had some success in juniors, and it's just basically been about having the chance to play. Obviously it's nice he's getting his body right and things linking up. We were very excited to play in front of fans though on Show Court 3 on a Saturday when everyone is getting pissed, so that would have been awesome to go out there and just give them something to kind of go out with a bang. But it's good that we got a win today. I think it was good just to get our bodies moving as well, especially me after last night. Yeah, hopefully anything is possible if we get a bit of momentum we'll see what happens," Kyrgios said.
John Millman had a big win on day six, partnering up with Brazilian Thiago Monteiro to defeat 16th seeds Neal and Ken Skupski respectively 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-4.
Unfortunately Arina Rodionova and Storm Sanders didn't share the same luck - going down to ninth seeds Desirae Krawczyk and Alexa Guarachi 1-6, 7-5, 5-7 in a tight encounter.
Aussies Ellen Perez and Andrew Harris advanced in the mixed doubles, defeating Australian Luke Saville and American Asia Muhammad 7-5, 7-6(6) in the opening match of the day on Show Court 3.
Former Australian Open finalists Astra Sharma and John-Patrick Smith went down in the opening round to Polish pairing Iga Swiatek and Lukasz Kubot 7-5, 6-7(6), 8-10 in a thriller on Court 13.
Fellow Aussie pairing Ivana Popovic and Aleksandar Vukic also went down on day six, falling to third seeds Ivan Dodig and Gabriela Dabrowski 1-6, 1-6 in just 39 minutes.