Melbourne: World No. 1 Iga Swiatek battled back from two breaks down in the final set to beat Danielle Collins 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 on Thursday and reach the third round of the Australian Open for the fifth successive year.
Number three seed and last year's finalist Elena Rybakina was knocked out by Russian Anna Blinkova 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(20). A dramatic decider saw both players break three times before Blinkova came out on top in a tiebreak lasting over 30 minutes.
Danish eighth seed Holger Rune suffered a 7-6(4), 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 second round defeat to France's Arthur Cazaux, ranked 122.
Impressive record
Collins might be ranked 62nd in the world but has a good record at Melbourne Park and beat Swiatek in the semifinals two years ago before going on to lose to Ash Barty in the title-decider.
Four-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek has an excellent record against lower-ranked players but really had to dig deep into her reserves to overcome Collins in a dramatic but scrappy three-hour contest on Rod Laver Arena.
The 30-year-old Collins faltered in her serve at key moments in the match and Swiatek found her best tennis late in the decisive set to move onto a third-round clash with Czech Linda Noskova.
"Oh my god, honestly, I was already at the airport," said Swiatek, whose run to the 2022 semis was her best showing at Melbourne Park.
"I wanted to fight until the end, she played perfectly but it would be hard for anybody to keep that level so I wanted to be ready when mistakes were going to come from the other side.
"I wanted to push then and I did that at the end and I'm really proud of myself because it wasn't easy."
Collins drew first blood with a break for 3-1 in the opening set but Swiatek broke straight back to love and the match was locked up at 3-3 when a shower interrupted play for half an hour as the roof was closed.
Swiatek came out firing on the resumption, racing around the court to win four straight games to lock up the first set and go a break up in the second.
That seemed to galvanise Collins and the 30-year-old American ramped up the speed of her groundstrokes to rattle off the next five games and serve for the second set.
"I felt I had the momentum going and she suddenly started playing two times faster," Swiatek recalled.
"I had no idea how to react to that for a couple of games but I just came back and thought the only thing I can focus on is myself."
Five double faults helped Swiatek save four set-points and the Pole fought off another on her own serve before Collins finally got over the line at the sixth attempt to level up the contest after more than two hours on court.
Collins was by no means done yet and two breaks gave her a 4-1 lead in the decider but that was as good as it got for the American, who raced straight off court at the end and later announced she would be retiring this year.
"I lost 6-4 in the third to one of the best players in the world, and she played some great tennis. Left it all on the court," Collins said.
"I don't really know exactly when, but this will be my last season and I'm really looking forward to that."
Swiatek saw two match points saved in the final game but finally sealed the deal when she seized on a Collins dropshot and sent a sizzling backhand down the line.
Sixth seed Alexander Zverev survived an almighty scare as the former semi-inalist dug deep to beat Slovakian qualifier Lukas Klein 7-5, 3-6, 4-6, 7-6(5), 7-6(7) and move into the men's third round.
Rain forced the four-and-a-half-hour -hour contest to be completed under the roof on John Cain Arena and Zverev found himself in huge trouble as world No. 163 Klein turned up the pressure after losing the opening set to take the next two.
"I would have much rather won in an hour-and-a-half but what can I do," Zverev said. "He played incredible, was hitting every ball as hard as he could from both sides. I didn't really know what to do a lot of the times.
"To be honest, he probably deserved to win more than me. That's how tennis goes sometimes. I'm happy that I'm through but his ranking is no value to how he's playing."
The 25-year-old Klein, whose only previous Grand Slam main draw appearance was at Wimbledon in 2022, was inching towards his first career top-10 win but squandered the chance to break at 4-4 in the fourth set, much to Zverev's relief.
"I was thinking there's a Qantas flight at 11 pm tonight straight to Dubai and then one to home," Zverev said, adding that he was just a spectator much of the time as Klein reeled off the winners, finishing with 80 in total.
"I was playing but the match was his hands, he was playing winners or he was missing ... I'm extremely happy to be honest."
