USA's Jessica Pegula suffered an embarrassing second-round defeat in the Australian Open 2024 to crash out of the season's first Grand Slam on Thursday. She suffered a straight-sets defeat to France's Clara Burel. The 22-year-old Frenchwoman achieves her biggest victory when she takes out world No. 5 Pegula and advances to the third round of the Australian Open for the first time in her career.
Pegula became the highest seed to depart the Australian Open, upset by young French star Clara Burel 6-4, 6-2. The fifth seed had no answers to the 22-year-old, who set up an all-French third-round clash with Oceane Dodin, conqueror of Italy's Martina Trevisan. "I'm still shaking," said Burel, who has never gone beyond a Grand Slam second round before. "I'm just really happy to be through.
"That's nice that I play Oceane, because it means one of us will be in the fourth round. I'm sure it will be a great match."
Pegula won the Montreal WTA 1000 trophy last season as well as a title in Seoul.
Earlier, WTA World No. 1 Iga Swiatek admitted she was mentally "at the airport" before staging an astonishing comeback against Danielle Collins to stay alive in the Australian Open on Thursday as Carlos Alcaraz returned to action.
The Polish world number one was up a set and a break in her second-round match before faltering badly and slipping to a 4-1 deficit in the deciding set.
But just as she appeared to be heading home, she reeled off five straight games to win 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 and extend her winning run to 18 matches.
"Oh my God, I was at the airport already," joked Swiatek, who has never won the Australian Open.
"I wanted to fight until the end. I knew she played perfectly but it would be hard for anybody to keep that level, so I wanted to be ready for if the mistakes would come from the other side.
"It wasn't easy. I felt like I had the momentum going and then she started playing suddenly two times faster and I had no idea how to react to that for a couple of games. I came back, and I thought the only thing I could focus on was myself."
Four-time Grand Slam champion Swiatek, who will face unseeded Czech player Linda Noskova in the third round, reeled off 36 winners against 35 unforced errors.
Despite her dazzling comeback, she will know that she has to move up a gear and find more consistency if she is to progress further.
With AFP inputs