Ying-Ying Duan recorded the first victory of the 2018 Australian Open, routing Mariana Duque-Mariño 6-0, 6-1 in just 51 minutes. The Chinese was in control throughout, never having her serve broken in advancing to a second round matchup with reigining French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko.

Duan rolls through the first set

Duque Marino was wasteful in her opening service game, squandering two game points and despite saving a break point, she was handcuffed on a powerful backhand return to hand Duan the early lead.

The world number 100 was cruising on serve, having lost just four points in the opening set and she broke again in the third game with a sizzling backhand down the line and again in the fifth game.

Serving for the set, she held a 40-15 lead and when the Colombian flew a backhand long, Duan was a set to the good, serving at 81% in the opening frame.

Chinese keeps up blistering pace to advance with ease

While there was very little hope for Duque-Mariño to produce a comeback, any small chance was extinguished when she double-faulted at 30-40 in the opening game of the second set.

The Colombian couldn't be accused of not trying and she held her only break point of the match in the very next game, saved with a thundering serve. Duan battled through to hold and the match was essentially sealed with a second break for a 3-0 lead.

Duque-Mariño would stop the streak of games won at ten with her best game of the match, holding to 15. After another emphatic hold, Duan closed the match in style, extracting one last error with another blistering backhand for a love break.

Post-match analysis

Duan is a tall, well-built player and she used her power to dictate nearly every point of this match. Dominating in every category, she has a slight chance against Ostapenko due to her weapons.

Duque-Mariño was clearly overmatched and did well to qualify, but she's not at her best on hard courts and will look to do most of her damage during the upcoming clay court season.

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John Lupo
I am a writer and photographer. I have two Instagrams: @lupojohn1 is my personal account while @dslr_transit_photos is my photography account as I do transit photography in my hometown of New York City.