Elina Svitolina quizzed on Gael Monfils romance as Andre Agassi joins in with the tributes to Andy Murray
- Elina Svitolina was not impressed with Gael Monfils question in interview
- World No 155 Alex Bolt made it through to round three by beating Gilles Simon
- Racket smash of the day came from No 7 seed Dominic Thiem on Thursday
The Australian Open is well underway with plenty of impressive wins and major shocks.
The likes of Top seed Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams and Alexander Zverev all picked up victories on Thursday.
Here, Sportsmail’s MIKE DICKSON runs us through all the things that have been happening in Melbourne .
Svitolina quizzed on Monfils romance
Post-match interviews on court at the Australian Open have a history of causing a kerfuffle and sixth seed Elina Svitolina was less than overjoyed to be asked about the presence of her boyfriend, French player Gael Monfils, in the stands.
‘I didn’t really expect to be asked that, because I just finished my match,’ she said later, after easing through to the third round.
Gael Monfils watches girlfriend Elina Svitolina take on Viktoria Kuzmova in the second round
Svitolina was less than overjoyed to be asked about Monfils in her post-match interview
Bolt from the Blue
In what has been a decent Open so far for the home men the most heartening story is that of lefthander Alex Bolt, the world No 155 who made round three by beating Gilles Simon in five sets.
Three years ago, disillusioned and broke, he gave up and got a job as a fence installer before deciding to give tennis a second crack.
Alex Bolt, the world No 155, made it through to round three by beating Gilles Simon in five sets
Andre Agassi became the latest great to pay tribute to Andy Murray.
The American, helping coach Grigor Dimitrov here, said: ‘You don’t want to see that with anybody, especially someone as great as he’s been and what he’s done for the game.
‘He punched the clock every time he went on court.’
Racket smash of the day came from Austria’s Dominic Thiem, the No 7 seed and supposed future Grand Slam champion.
Thiem totalled his racket as he began to lose to Aussie wildcard Popyrin, crunching it into the ground after losing the first set.
He retired at 2-0 down in the third set, complaining that he was feeling ill.
Dominic Thiem smashed his racket before retiring due to illness against Alexei Popyrin
Here comes the kids
In this day and age of tennis players thriving well into their thirties it is unusual that three teenagers have made the third round.
One is the long-touted Denis Shapovalov of Canada, while the two others are both Australians, Alex de Minaur (who plays Rafael Nadal on Friday) and the less-known Alexei Popyrin, from Sydney.
Giant Croatian servebot Ivo Karlovic, 40 next month, nearly took out the one foot shorter No 8 seed Kei Nishikori before losing in a sudden-death tiebreaker.
He served 59 aces in the match but still could not clinch victory.