Australian Open 2019, Day 3: Men's and Women's Round-Up

Day 3 of the Australian Open 2019 continued today at Melbourne Park and fans were treated to some scintillating tennis action on all the courts.

A few upsets took place, big guns were tested, and quite a few home favourites took the courts for their respective second round encounters.

To start things off at the Rod Laver Arena, 2017 US Open women's champion Sloane Stephens won her match against Timea Babos with ease. The American won in straight sets, defeating Babos 6-3, 6-1.

Shortly after that, home favourite Ashleigh Barty continued her fine run of form and defeated Wang Yafang 6-2, 6-3. Barty has been in great form over the past year or so and she is expected to make a deep run in this tournament.

After the women's matches, Roger Federer was tested by world no. 189 Dan Evans of Great Britan. Evans was up to the task as he made Federer work hard and gave him a run for his money. He had his chances in the first set, especially in the tie-break but a couple of errors right at the end gave the set to the Swiss Maestro.

Federer was up a break in the second but Evans fought back to force another tie-break. This time, Federer won it with ease and ensured no further hiccups in the final set. He finally won 7-6(5), 7-6(3), 6-3 in two hours and 35 minutes. He will take on Taylor Fritz in the third round. The big-serving American defeated Gael Monfils in four sets.

The biggest upset of the day came on Margaret Court Arena, where USA's Frances Tiafoe defeated World No. 5 and two-time Grand Slam finalist, Kevin Anderson in 4 sets - 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-5. The South African won the first set but Tiafoe fought back and won the next three in sensational fashion. He is now on course to meet Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals.

Nadal himself had an easy win today against home favourite Matthew Ebden. His match was the last on Rod Laver Arena and he had no difficulties taking on the Aussie.

His forehand was on fire and so was his serve, producing aces throughout the match. He defeated Ebden in straight sets, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2. He will take on another Aussie in Alex de Minaur in the third round.

De Minaur had an epic five-set battle against Henri Laaksonen today. The 19-year-old youngster won the first two sets with ease. However, Laaksonen fought back to take the third set in the tie-break and then went on to win the 4th set as well. With the crowd behind him, the Aussie managed to claw his way back into the match and win it in the final set.

The final score was 6-4, 6-2, 6-7(7), 4-6, 6-3 in favour of de Minaur.

Meanwhile, Tomas Berdych, Grigor Dimitrov, Marin Cilic, and Stefanos Tsitsipas are all through to the third round as well.

In the women's singles, Caroline Wozniacki, Maria Sharapova, Angelique Kerber, and Petra Kvitova all achieved easy victories over their opponents. The only top-ten seed to fall today was ninth seed Kiki Bertens who lost to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in three sets, 6-3, 3-6, 3-6.

End of Indian challenge in men's doubles

It was a bad day for Indian fans as the Indian challenge came to an end in the men's doubles category.

The pair of Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan fell to the Spanish pair of Garcia Lopez and Carreno Busta, 1-6, 6-4, 5-7. Leander Paes and his partner, Miguel Ángel Reyes-Varela fell to the pair of Austin Krajicek and Artem Sitak in straight sets.

Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and his partner, Nicholas Monroe, too, lost in the first round as they fell to the pair of Nikola Mektić and Kevin Krawietz 5-7, 6-7.