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Patna : Top seed and World No 1 Ashleigh Barty, 24, Australia, beat 29th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, 26, Russia, in straight sets 6-2, 6-4 in third round at Melbourne Park, Australia, on February 13, 2021, to reach 4th round of Australian Open (AO) 2021.
Barty, in all, won 68 points during the match to 53 by Alexandrova. The Australian won 5 break points during the match to 2 by the Russian. Both the players served 4 Aces each in the match. Barty, a former cricketer, won 7 games in a row in the match to 3 by the Russian. Barty will face Shelby Rogers, 28, USA, in 4th round on February 15, 2021. Rogers beat 21st Anett Kontaveit, 25, Estonia, 6-4, 6-3 in 3rd round.
But, 6th seed Karolina Pliskova, 28, Czech Republic, the 2019 AO semi-finalist, crashed out of the tournament suffering a shock defeat at the hand of 25th seed Karolina Muchova, 24, Czech Republic.
Muchova stunned Karolina Plaiskova, 7-5, 7-5 in third round on February 13, 2021. Muchova, in all, won 92 points during the match to 80 by Pliskova. She won 6 break points in the match to 4 by Pliskova. Muchova will face 18th seed Elise Mertens, 25, Belgium, in 4th round on February 15, 2021.