After Upsetting Venus Williams, Belinda Bencic Falls at Australian Open

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MELBOURNE, Australia — Two days after her upset win over Venus Williams, Belinda Bencic is out of the Australian Open.

Bencic was on a high after beating Williams, a finalist last year, on the center court in the first round, but she started flatly on Hisense Arena on Wednesday and lost, 6-1, 6-3, to Luksika Kumkhum, a power-hitting Thai qualifier.

Bencic, a 20-year-old Swiss who combined with Roger Federer to win the Hopman Cup in the lead-up to the Australian Open, saved three match points on her serve before netting a backhand to give the No. 124th-ranked Kumkhum a spot in the third round for the first time.

A 15-year-old qualifier and the No. 4-seeded Elina Svitolina were among three Ukrainian women who had matches starting simultaneously on Day 3 — and all progressed to the third round.

The former Australian junior champion Marta Kostyuk, who entered the tournament ranked No. 521, followed up her opening win over 25th-seeded Peng Shuai with a 6-3, 7-5 victory over the wild-card entry Olivia Rogowska.

Kostyuk already is the youngest player since Martina Hingis in 1996 to win a main-draw match at the Australian Open. That came after three three-set matches in qualifying over six hours.

Kostyuk is managed by Ivan Ljubicic, who works with Federer, and so gets the benefit of some first-rate analysis.

“Ivan is always helping me,” she said. Smiling, she added, “After every match, he’s telling me what’s wrong.”

Kostyuk’s progress is set to become more difficult, with a meeting against Svitolina in the next round.

While Kostyuk was playing on Margaret Court Arena, Svitolina, who won a tour-leading five titles in 2017, had a 4-6, 6-2, 6-1 win over Katerina Siniakova on the adjoining Rod Laver Arena.

Their fellow Ukrainian, Kateryna Bondarenko, beat No. 15 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 6-2, 6-3, in the day’s opening match on Melbourne Park’s third show court to reach the third round here for the third time.

Zhang Shuai, who defeated the United States Open champion Sloane Stephens in the first round, was toppled by the Czech qualifier Denisa Allertova, 6-4, 7-6 (5).

On the men’s side, No. 10 Pablo Carreño Busta was leading, 6-2, 3-0, when Gilles Simon retired from their second-round match with a leg injury.

Andreas Seppi beat Yoshihito Nishioka, 6-1, 6-3, 6-4, and Gilles Muller defeated Malek Jaziri, 7-5, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 3-6, 6-2.