Australian Open: Ruthless Elina Svitolina ends Marta Kostyuk’s dream debut
Elina Svitolina defeated her fellow Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk 6-2, 6-2 on Rod Laver Arena to advance to the fourth round of the Australian Open tennis tournament.
Ruthless fourth seed Elina Svitolina gave 15-year-old compatriot Marta Kostyuk a 59-minute lesson in grand slam tennis to reach the fourth round of the Australia Open with a 6-2 6-2 victory in searing heat on Friday.
Qualifier Kostyuk became the youngest player to reach the third round of a grand slam in over 20 years on Wednesday but her dream run was brought to a shuddering halt by her fellow Ukrainian on Rod Laver Arena.
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The teenager made an excellent start by breaking Svitolina in the first game of the match but from then on it was pretty much all one-way traffic as the in-form world number four set up a meeting with Czech qualifier Denisa Allertova.
Svitolina, showing no desire to spend a minute longer in the heat than necessary and no sign of the injury issues she reported after her second round match, progressed when Kostyuk served up her ninth double fault of the contest.
Birthday gift for Martic
Petra Martic celebrated her 27th birthday Friday by holding off a gritty challenge from Thai qualifier Luksika Kumkhum to reach the last 16 of the Australian Open for the first time.
Martic battled fierce heat and a succession of powerful winners from her opponent to prevail 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 after two hours and 10 minutes on Rod Laver Arena.
World number 81 Martic has reached three other Grand Slam fourth rounds but was made to battle all the way to get to her first in Australia.
The 124th-ranked Kumkhum went for broke throughout a ding-dong battle, powering a remarkable 44 winners past the Croatian, who had just 18 of her own.