{"id":426256,"date":"2026-01-22T17:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/426256\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T17:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T17:11:12","slug":"tennis-wta-australian-open-2026-bartunkova-eliminates-bencic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/426256\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis, WTA \u2013 Australian Open 2026: Bartunkova eliminates Bencic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Australian Open \u2022Second round \u2022<br \/>\n                  Completed\n         <\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennismajors.com\/competitions\/australian-open-2026-womens-singles\" class=\"px  bg-black hover:bg-white hover:text-black hover:border-black col-span-1 flex items-center justify-center border-l border-transparent text-[10px] font-bold uppercase text-white transition-colors duration-300\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n      See draw<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The 19-year-old Nikola Bartunkova, currently ranked No 126, arrived at the 2026 Australian Open as a rising talent with much to prove after a tumultuous start to her professional career. A former top 10 junior and Wimbledon girls\u2019 finalist, her progress was famously halted by a six-month anti-doping ban in 2024 for unintentional ingestion of a contaminated supplement.<\/p>\n<p>Since her return, she has surged over 400 places in the rankings, reaching WTA quarterfinals in Guadalajara and claiming a W75 title in Hechingen last season. Her debut in Melbourne has been nothing short of spectacular, having already eliminated Daria Kasatkina in the opening round. On Thursday, she took it a step further by snapping the 12-match winning streak of Belinda Bencic, the 28-year-old Swiss star who had been unbeaten in 2026.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>A maiden top 10 victory and a historic debut<\/p>\n<p>Bartunkova, whose variety-filled game has earned comparisons to compatriot Karolina Muchova, started brilliantly by taking the first set with aggressive shot-making. However, the experience of world No 10 Bencic surfaced in a lightning-fast second set. For the second consecutive match, the Czech teenager was bageled in the middle set by a vastly more experienced opponent. Yet, just as she did against Kasatkina, Bartunkova demonstrated grit beyond her years, recovering to serve out the match to love in the deciding set.<\/p>\n<p>The victory marks Bartunkova\u2019s first win over a top 10 player and makes her the first qualifier to reach the third round on her Grand Slam debut this season. The Czech collapsed to the court in celebration as a Bencic forehand sailed long on match point, signaling the biggest upset in the women\u2019s draw since the tournament began. The defeat is a bitter blow for Bencic, who had entered the Australian Open as a serious title contender <a href=\"http:\/\/United Cup Switzerland\" data-wplink-url-error=\"true\" rel=\"nofollow\">after leading Switzerland to a United Cup<\/a> victory earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>Elise Mertens stands in the way of the second week<\/p>\n<p>Reflecting on the milestone in her post-match interview, the teenager was overwhelmed by the occasion. \u201cIt\u2019s a dream come true, because it was an unbelievable match from me,\u201d Bartunkova said.<\/p>\n<p>  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patrickmouratoglou.com\/en\/champion-mindset-pre-order\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"mx-auto\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Banner-Social-Media-Facebook-scaled.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"aspect-3-1 mx-auto max-w-full overflow-hidden object-cover md:max-w-xl\"\/><br \/>\n  <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nikola Bartunkova now prepares for another significant challenge in the third round against the No 21 seed Elise Mertens. The experienced Belgian advanced earlier in the day with a clinical 6-3, 6-1 win over Moyuka Uchijima, setting up a clash of generations. Mertens, a former semifinalist in Melbourne (2018), will provide a different kind of defensive test for the young Czech, whose flair and net-rushing tactics have become a highlight of the first week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian Open \u2022Second round \u2022 Completed See draw The 19-year-old Nikola Bartunkova, currently ranked No 126, arrived at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-426256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}