American fifth seed Sloane Stephens has ended the Australian Open campaign of her former doubles partner and long-time friend Timea Babos.
Stephens triumphed 6-3 6-1 although the second-round victory was a more hard-fought one than suggested by the scoreline.
Big-serving Hungarian Babos was down break point on 23 occasions, but Stephens was only able to convert five of them in a match which lasted one hour and 35 minutes.
“We were friends when we played juniors, we practised together and stuff, but I don’t know how that came to pass,” said Stephens of her successful partnership with Babos which netted three junior grand slam doubles titles in 2010.
“I still see her every week. We’re good.
“She’s obviously an incredible doubles player – last year she was No.1 in the world.
“She had some really good results and I’m happy for her.”
Stephens enjoyed her grand slam breakthrough at the 2013 Australian Open, when she beat Serena Williams to advance to the semis as a 19-year-old.
But it has been more of a case of slim pickings in recent times, with the victory over Babos only her third at Melbourne Park in the past five years.
“I thought it was a good match and obviously it’s not easy playing someone who serves like that,” said the 2017 US Open champion.
“I am feeling relaxed considering I hadn’t won a match here in I don’t know how long.”
Stephens’ third-round opponent will be Croatian No.31 seed Petra Martic, who ousted Czech Marketa Vondrousova 6-4 7-5.
In other early action on Wednesday, French No.19 seed Caroline Garcia eased past Australian wildcard Zoe Hives 6-3 6-3.
Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova upset No.9 seed Kiki Bertens from the Netherlands 3-6 6-3 6-3.
Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich also ousted a seed, beating No.20 Anett Kontaveit from Estonia 6-3 6-3.