Wozniacki rallies in Australia
Second-seeded player fends off two match points, rallies from 5-1 down against Fett.
Second seed comes back from 5-1 deficit in third set to advance to the third round.
MELBOURNE, Australia — Second-ranked Caroline Wozniacki fended off two match points and rallied from 5-1 down to win the last six games in the third set and avoid a second-round upset at the Australian Open.
Former No. 1-ranked Wozniacki used her experience to save match points in the seventh game of the deciding set Wednesday against No. 119-ranked Jana Fett, who was making her main draw debut at a major, and eventually pull off a 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 win.
“That was crazy,” said Denmark’s Wozniacki, who has reached two Grand Slam finals and was a semifinalist here in 2011. “I don’t know how I got back into the match.
“She’s a tricky opponent and she had nothing to lose. And then I think she realized she was up 5-1 and she let off the speed just a little bit, and I was like, this is my last chance. I have to go in and attack.”
Wozniacki won the next nine points, and 24 of the 31 points played from when she first faced match point. She clinched a 75-minute third set on her first match point when Fett netted a backhand.
A loss for Wozniacki would have seriously opened up the bottom half of the draw following the firstround defeats of 2017 finalist Venus Williams, U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens and No. 10-seeded CoCo Vandeweghe.
No. 4-seeded Elina Svitolina is the next highestranked player on that side, and she next plays 15-yearold qualifier Marta Kostyuk — the youngest player to win main draw matches at Melbourne Park since Martina Hingis in 1996.
Belinda Bencic had a letdown two days after upsetting Williams, losing 6-1, 6-3 to Thai qualifier Luksika Kumkhum.
Bencic, who combined with Roger Federer to win the Hopman Cup for Switzerland this month, saved three match points on her serve before netting a backhand to give 124th-ranked Kumkhum a spot in the third round for the first time.
“I tried to reset and focus on the next match,” Bencic said. “I think it was also a very tough second round, for me the toughest I could get.”
Kostyuk, who entered the season’s first major ranked No. 521, followed up her firstround win over 25th-seeded Peng Shuai with a 6-3, 7-5 victory over wild-card entry Olivia Rogowska.
As Australian Open junior champion, Kostyuk got a wild card into the qualifying draw. She won three threeset matches to reach the main draw and is already guaranteed around $143,000.
She could lose some of that after being given a code violation after the chair umpire ruled she had communicated with her mother in the crowd.
Kostyuk is managed by Ivan Ljubicic, who works with Roger Federer, and so gets the benefit of some firstrate analysis.
“Ivan is always helping me after every match, he’s telling me what’s wrong,” she said, smiling, after she framed a wayward serve on her first match point but got it right the second time.
Kostyuk’s progress is set to become more difficult, with a meeting against fellow Ukrainian Svitolina in the next round.
Svitolina, who won a tour-leading five titles in 2017, had a 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 win over Katerina Siniakova.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France rallied from 5-2 in the fifth to overcome Canada’s Denis Shapovalov 3-6, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (4), 7-5 in a 3-hour, 37minute match.