Swiatek into third round indoors as rain stops play outside

MELBOURNE : Iga Swiatek, hot favourite for the women's title, and men's dark horse Jannik Sinner swept into the third round of the Australian Open before nine first-round matches were started as the weather continued to wreak havoc at Melbourne Park on Wednesday.

World number one Swiatek overcame Camila Osorio 6-2 6-3 under the roof on Rod Laver Arena and Italian Sinner waltzed past Tomas Etcheverry 6-3 6-2 6-2 on the similarly protected John Cain Arena.

Rain kept the players off the outer courts for four hours after the scheduled start, however, adding to fixture congestion triggered by extreme heat and storms on Tuesday when nine matches did not get started and two could not be completed.

Swiatek headlined the action that was possible early on Wednesday and was the first to admit that the scoreline did not reflect the difficulty of her contest against the 21-year-old Colombian.

The Polish top seed set off at a canter and was 4-0 up before Osorio found her range with her groundstrokes and scooted around the court to put huge pressure on Swiatek's serve.

Two breaks of serve got the Colombian on the scoreboard at 5-2 but Swiatek broke back to win the opening set and fended off another break point in the opening game of the second.

"It was really intense physically and Camila was running to every ball, she didn't give up," said Swiatek.

"She didn't give me many points for free, so I needed to really work for each one of them, but I'm happy that I was consistent in being proactive and trying to just play a little faster to put pressure (on her)."

Swiatek always had the measure of Osorio's serve, however, and even when she was broken serving for the match for the first time, a third round meeting with former U.S. Open champion