Australian Open: Osaka cruises into third round at Melbourne Park

The U.S. Open champion beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, a three-time quarterfinalist at Melbourne Park, 6-1, 6-2 in the first round. The matches lasted just over an hour each.

Naomi Osaka beat another potentially difficult opponent with relative ease at the Australian Open, dropping just five games in a 6-2, 6-3 win over former top-five player Caroline Garcia.

The U.S. Open champion beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, a three-time quarterfinalist at Melbourne Park, 6-1, 6-2 in the first round. The matches lasted just over an hour each.

With her quick matches, third-seeded Osaka has had plenty of spare time in Melbourne, but she admitted after the match she's pretty much just stayed in lockdown.

Her first day in Melbourne after the mandatory quarantine, she said, “I was really excited because you guys get to do stuff unlike in America."

"So I walked around, but then I felt guilty and didn’t know if people were staring at me, so now I just stay in my room and watch Netflix.”

Osaka is on a 16-match win streak, with her last loss coming in a Fed Cup match last February. She has had two walkovers since the WTA Tour resumed in August, including last week before the semifinal of the Gippsland Trophy warm-up tournament.

Earlier, top-seeded Novak Djokovic fended off a spirited challenge from Frances Tiafoe in the second round of the Australian Open, beating the young 23-year-old American 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (2), 6-3 in a 3 1/2-hour match.

Both players were on serve in the fourth set and looked headed for another tiebreaker when Tiafoe was given a time violation on his serve. He lost his temper — and then his serve — to fall behind 3-4. He didn't win another game in the match.

Though Tiafoe played an aggressive match, Djokovic was better when it mattered. He had the edge in terms of winners (56-49) and converted five break points to just two for Tiafoe.

Djokovic had only lost in the second round once at Melbourne Park, against Denis Istomin in 2017.