IT was absolute carnage at Melbourne Park today, with the women’s seeds falling left, right and centre. Starting the day there were three top six seeds in action. By early afternoon, two were eliminated, and a third was on the ropes – down a set and in serious trouble.

Luckily world number two Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka used yet another ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card for the second consecutive match. In eerily similar circumstances to her first round clash against lowly ranked Australian wildcard Storm Sanders, Sabalenka slumped to an early deficit. After 33 minutes, the second seed was 6-1 down against world number 100, China’s Xinyu Wang. It was unexplainable, other than the fact she was by far her own worst enemy.

In those 33 minutes, Sabalenka hit 19 unforced errors – including 12 double faults – for only nine winners and one ace. Xinyu does not possess anywhere near the amount of raw power of her opponent, but hitting just seven winners – for six unforced errors – was enough for her to get up in the first set.

Luckily for Sabalenka, her sheer power and capacity to dominate games off her own racquet was also what got her back into it. Over the next two sets, she served four aces and only seven more double faults. Still not great, but an improvement. Her 26 winners to 24 unforced errors in the final two sets was a lot more stabilised and the world number two escaped into the third round, where she will play 31st seed and 2019 Roland Garros runner-up Marketa Vondrousova.

Whilst Sabalenka got away with her Australian Open title dreams intact, third seed Spaniard Garbine Muguruza was not so fortunate. Coming off a win at the WTA Finals last year, it seemed Muguruza was back to her brilliant best. She reached an Australian Open Final in 2020, and often saves her best for Melbourne Park, but has not made it past the fourth round in her past six Grand Slams.

Normally lucky, number seven was not to be for Muguruza who went down to Frenchwoman Alize Cornet. The 31-year-old world number 61 is known for her consistency, but she peaked over a decade ago when she reached 11th in the world back in 2009. Still piecing together a great career with six singles titles, Cornet ended Muguruza’s 2021 run in the second round with a 6-3 6-3 victory on Rod Laver Arena. Both players hit 17 winners, but Cornet had just 16 unforced errors to Muguruza’s 33, and broke three times without facing a break point herself. Now she will lock horns with 29th seed Slovenian Tamara Zidansek.

The other massive upset of the day was sixth seed Anett Kontaveit going down to Danish young gun Clara Tauson. The talented Tauson is a future star, destined for the Top 10. But the form that Kontaveit showed last season made her red-hot favourite in the clash. An hour and 19 minutes later however, and the Estonian was packing her bags and Tauson was through to the third round.

The 183cm talent served five aces to two, and won 73 and 57 per cent of her first and second serve points, compared to Kontaveit’s 55 and 37 per cent. The Dane also hit 20 winners for only 13 unforced errors in a slick performance, whilst the Estonian hit 15 and 27 respectively. In total, the five break points to two made the difference for Tauson who booked her place in the Round of 32. She takes on 27th seed Danielle Collins, but with Muguruza previously in that section, it means the prospective quarter final of Kontaveit-Muguruza is completely off the cards.

The quarter was widened even further by the loss of 12th seed Elena Rybakina, who had to retire 11 games into her second round match. Taking on Shuai Zhang, Rybakina was trailing 4-6 0-1 when she had to retire with blisters. It meant Shuai moved through to take on 19th seed Elise Mertens in the Round of 32. Whatever happens, that quarter of the draw is anyone’s to take, with Grand Slam winners Simona Halep and Emma Raducanu still alive at the time of publishing.