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Defending women’s singles champion Sofia Kenin has been knocked out of the Australian Open, losing in straight sets to Kaia Kanepi in the second round.
The American fourth seed, 22, was beaten 6-3 6-2 in just 64 minutes.
Estonian Kanepi, 35, dominated throughout, hitting 22 winners to Kenin’s 10 and saving all seven break points she faced at Melbourne Park.
Kanepi will face Croat 28th seed Donna Vekic in the third round.
Kenin, who acknowledged that she was struggling with the pressure of being defending champion after her first-round win, was nowhere near her best against Kanepi, making 22 unforced errors and hitting only 10 winners.
Meanwhile, world number one Ashleigh Barty overcame fellow Australian Daria Gavrilova 6-1 7-6 (9-7) to move into the next round.
Barty looked set for a routine win when she served for the match at 6-1 5-2 but Gavrilova broke twice to force a second-set tie-break.
The 24-year-old, who did not play for almost a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, saved set points before securing the victory. Next up for Barty is Russian 29th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova.
She was joined in the third round by sixth seed Karolina Pliskova who saw off American Danielle Collins 7-5 6-2 and will now play fellow Czech Karolina Muchova.
Swiss 11th seed Belinda Bencic outlasted Russian veteran Svetlana Kuznetsova 7-5 2-6 6-4 to set up a meeting with Belgian 18th seed Elise Mertens, who beat China’s Lin Zhu 7-6 (10-8) 6-1.
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