The host nation’s top two remaining chances at Grand Slam glory are into the Australian Open third round after convincing victories on Wednesday.
Sam Stosur put together a second straight win at what has historically been her worst of the four grand slam tournaments, defeating Tsvetana Pironkova 6-2 6-0.
Stosur collected 23 winners against her Bulgarian opponent, but was bolstered by a nagging thigh complaint to Pironkova.
After sketchy performances in lead-up tournaments, the 19th seed Aussie is on track to match her career-best fourth round appearance at an Australian Open.
“I feel great,” Stosur declared afterwards. “I’m really happy with the way that I played.
“That’s the way you want it to be,” she said. “As much as you want to be playing your best tennis at the Hopman Cup or Hobart, you want to peak, as they say, at the right moment.
“I don’t know if I peaked, but my tennis is getting better, it’s moving in the right direction.
The third round will see Sam Stosur take on 14th seed Ana Ivanovic followed by what would likely be a fourth round match-up against the dominant Serena Williams.
Casey Dellacqua’s strong run continued with an impressive 6-3 6-0 win over Kirsten Flipkens.
It took Dellacqua just 63 minutes to wrap up her 18th seed opponent, two days after defeating former world No.2 Vera Zvonareva.
Dellacqua’s 19 break points and strong serving places her against either American Madison Keys or China’s Zheng Jie in the next round.
Andy Murray wasn’t too happy about the conditions earlier in week when players were subject bouts of extreme heat.
On-court conditions neared 45 degrees on Tuesday, however organisers refused to initiate the Extreme Heat Policy and suspend play during the hectic early round stages.
Murray needed just 87 minutes to breeze into the Open’s second round, but wasn’t too happy that participants were forced to play through the conditions.
“As much as it’s easy to say the conditions are safe, it only takes one bad thing to happen,” Murray said.
“And it looks terrible for the whole sport when people are collapsing, ball kids are collapsing, people in the stands are collapsing. That’s not great.
“Whether it’s safe or not, I don’t know. There’s been some issues in other sports with players having heart attacks.”
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