Iga Swiatek powers into third round at Australian Open

Iga Swiatek enhanced her status as the WTA's bagel queen on Thursday at the Australian Open.

The second-seeded Polish player crushed Slovakia's Rebecca Sramkova 6-0, 6-2 in the second round at Melbourne, Australia.

The perfect first set marked the 24th time Swiatek logged a 6-0 score during a Grand Slam match over the past four-plus years. She is far and away the leader in that category, with top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus sitting second on the list with nine bagels in that span.

Swiatek put just 49 percent of her first serves in play against Sramkova but never faced a break point while converting five of her six break opportunities.

"I felt really solid today and it was a really efficient game," Swiatek said. "I'm happy that I kept my focus."

The result sends Swiatek to a matchup of Grand Slam champions in the third round. Swiatek, a four-time French Open champ and the 2022 U.S. Open winner, will face off against Great Britain's Emma Raducanu, the 2021 U.S. Open champ.

Raducanu rallied for a 6-3, 7-5 win over the United States' Amanda Anisimova on Thursday. Anisimova led 3-1 in the first set before losing five games in a row, then went up 3-0 (with two service breaks) in the second set before Raducanu bounced back again.

Raducanu and Anisimova are close off the court.

"It's incredibly difficult whenever you play a friend, it adds another dimension to the match and not necessarily a pleasant one," Raducanu said. "It's really difficult to put all things off court aside. I think I managed to do a great job today.

"She's such an amazing opponent (and) had so many big wins. So I knew I had to fight hard, raise my game and not go away in the second set even when the chips are down. So I'm just really pleased and I wish her all the best."

In other early Thursday action, No. 6 Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan blitzed the United States' Iva Jovic 6-0, 6-3; No. 8 Emma Navarro of the United States edged China's Xiyu Wang 6-3, 3-6, 6-4; No. 9 Daria Kasatkina of Russia bounced China's Yafan Wang 6-2, 6-0; No. 24 Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan topped China's Shuai Zhang 6-2, 6-1; and No. 32 Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine thrashed Montenegro's Danka Kovinic 6-0, 6-1; and Tunisia's Ons Jabeur toppled Colombia's Camila Osorio 7-5, 6-3.

--Field Level Media