Maria Sharapova v Caroline Wozniacki: Australian Open third round – live!

First set: *Sharapova 1-1 Wozniacki (*denotes server) Quickfire hold to love for Sharapova who looks bang on the money early on, snapping through her service motion and hitting punishing forehands from the baseline with plenty of depth and power.

First set: Sharapova 0-1 Wozniacki* (*denotes server) Not the most convincing hold for Wozniacki in an opening service game featuring five deuces and three break points but she dusted away some early cobwebs eventually. A double-fault and some pretty weak second serves allowed Sharapova to set the tempo from the baseline, and her powerful forehand forced Wozniacki onto the back foot. The Russian went for a couple of shots too many though to allow Wozniacki chance to recover and then nail a couple of first serves when they were most needed.

Meanwhile, a not insignificant upset…

Sharapova leads the H2H 6-4 overall, Wozniacki leads 4-3 on hardcourts, but they haven’t faced each other since 2015.

The players are out on Rod Laver Arena. Sharapova has won the toss and elected to receive serve.

There’s no love lost between this pair, it should be noted. Wozniacki, a close friend of Sharapova’s long-time rival Serena Williams, criticised US Open schedulers in 2017 for prioritising the Russian despite returning from a doping suspension.

“And when you look on Centre Court – I understand completely the business side of things – but someone who comes back from a drugs sentence, performance-enhancing drugs, and all of a sudden gets to play every single match on Centre Court, I think that’s a questionable thing to do,” Wozniacki said at the time.

Here’s some more background on Wozniacki’s rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis that she revealed late last year.

The Bernard Tomic vs Lleyton Hewitt brouhaha is the story that just keeps on giving. Tomic has today responded to Hewitt’s comments from last night in response to Tomic’s comments from the other day.

“I have never threatened his family,” Tomic told News Corp Australia. “Nice, Lleyton. To think how low of a person you actually [are] and [it’s] why the Australian public never liked you. I got nothing to do with your family and I don’t care what’s wrong with you, you liar.”

I should point out that until recently action has been limited to the three stadium courts with roofs owing to some inclement weather in Victoria. Action is underway on the outside courts now, but there may be some scheduling tetris for tournament organisers later in the day to fit all the matches in – especially the early doubles contests.

In some live action away from RLA it isn’t good news for Belarus.

11th seed Aryna Sabalenka is a set down to American teenager Amanda Anisimova.

While Aliaksandra Sasnovich, who just missed out on a seeding, is a set down to experience Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Elsewhere around Melbourne Park today there have been wins for a resurgent Tomas Berdych, the legendary Roger Federer and the rising star Stefanos Tsitsipas. When the latter pair meet in their round four contest there will be a lovely baton-passing aspect to it.

Of course, you can join in the conversation about this match or anything AO related by contacting me on Twitter @JPHowcroft or by email [email protected].

The winner of this match plays the in-form Ash Barty in the last 16 after the Queenslander continued her impressive form with a straight sets victory over Maria Sakkari earlier today.

Barty thundered down 13 aces and dropped serve just once, but looked ginger at times with her movement, no doubt the result of a gruelling workload of eight matches in the past 12 days. The 22-year-old broke Sakkari in the 12th game to snatch a tight first set before running away with the second set and the match, prevailing after one hour and 22 minutes under a closed roof at Rod Laver Arena.