Caroline Wozniacki, With a Close Call Behind Her, Marches On

MELBOURNE, Australia — Caroline Wozniacki is continuing to cash in on her second chance at the Australian Open, reaching the quarterfinals here for the first time since 2012 with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Magdelana Rybaricova on Sunday.

After her close call in the second round — she had to save two match points and come back from 5-1 down in the third set — No. 2-ranked Wozniacki said she was “playing with the house money” and had nothing to lose.

She has won both matches since in straight sets and will next play Carla Suarez Navarro, who came back from a set and 4-1 down to beat No. 32 Anett Kontaveit, 4-6, 6-4, 8-6. Kontaveit served for the match at 5-4 in the third set, but had her service broken by Suarez Navarro, who advanced on her third match point when Kontaveit hit a forehand long.

After a tight tussle in the opening four games against No. 19-seeded Rybaricova, a Wimbledon semifinalist last year, Wozniacki dominated the fourth-round match. She even tried a between-the-legs “tweener” from near the baseline for the first time in a tour-level match. She didn’t win the point, but said it was progress.

“I think you can tell my confidence is high,” she said in an on-court TV interview. “I tried a tweener today and it went in.”

She looked at a replay on the stadium screen and joked, “I’m admiring myself there.”

Wozniacki could return to the top ranking if she reaches the semifinals at least and a combination of other results go her way.

She has never won a Grand Slam singles title but lost the United States Open final twice — to Kim Clijsters in 2009 and to Serena Williams in 2014.

On Saturday, the fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev made yet another puzzling early exit at a Grand Slam tournament, dropping 12 of the final 15 games in a 5-7, 7-6 (3), 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 loss to his fellow rising star Hyeon Chung in the third round.

Zverev, 20, won five ATP tournaments last year, second only to Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, but has reached the fourth round of a major just once.

More troubling, Zverev has notched multiple wins over top-10 players like Federer, Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka at regular ATP tournaments, but has not managed to beat a player ranked in the top 50 at a major.

Against Chung, Zverev seemed to come apart in the fourth set. He played at a high level for the first three sets, hitting 48 winners, including 19 aces, and making 27 unforced errors. He managed just nine winners to 24 unforced errors the rest of the match.

Chung, 21, became the first South Korean man to reach the fourth round at the Australian Open and just the third Korean player, male or female, to go so far at a Grand Slam. His next opponent is Djokovic, the six-time champion and No. 14 seed, who beat Chung in straight sets in the first round two years ago.