Sabalenka, Sinner lead charge into second week in Melbourne

MELBOURNE : Title contenders Jannik Sinner, Aryna Sabalenka, Coco Gauff and Stefanos Tsitsipas all made light work of their third-round ties at the Australian Open on Friday to storm into the second week of the year's first Grand Slam.

After a day of close scrapes, marathon tiebreaks and upsets at Melbourne Park on Thursday, the top seeds were ruthlessly efficient in booking their spots in the fourth round on day six of the championships.

Novak Djokovic, who has been dragged into dogfights in the first two matches of his 10th title defence, will look to emulate them when he takes on Tomas Martin Etcheverry on Rod Laver Arena in the evening session.

Aryna Sabalenka took less than an hour to beat 28th-seeded Ukrainian Lesia Tsurenko 6-0 6-0 on the main showcourt, sweeping into the last 16 without dropping a set as she did last year on her way to her first Grand Slam title.

Even with top 10 seeds Elena Rybakina, Jessica Pegula, Ons Jabeur, Marketa Vondrousova and Maria Sakkari already out, Sabalenka, however, was not getting carried away with her impressive progress.

"Listen, it's tennis," the Belarusian second seed said. "As we see with some of the top players losing in the earlier matches, anything can happen.

"I'm just trying to do my best and prepare myself as best I can for each match."

Sinner, the hottest player on the men's tour at the end of last year, continued his fine start to the season with a 6-1 6-0 6-3 pummelling of Argentine Sebastian Baez but was equally cautious.

"Let's see how I handle the situation when the score is even or I'm down, how I react," the Italian said. "It's going to be interesting to see."

"GREAT START"

Seventh seed Tsitsipas was particularly happy with his 6-3 6-0 6-4 win over French young gun