Chinese Peng Shuai romps into Australian Open 3rd round

Peng Shuai of China misses the ball as she tries to hit a return to Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia during their women's singles second round match at the Australian Open 2015 tennis tournament in Melbourne January 21, 2015. Peng defeated Rybarikova to win the match. [Photo/Agencies]

BELBOURNE - Chinese Peng Shuai on Wednesday morning crushed Slovakian Magdalena Rybarikova 6-1, 6-1 to reach the women's singles third round of the Australian Open, four years after the last time she did that.

It took the 22nd-ranked Chinese one hour and 10 minutes to beat the 47th-ranked rival.

Despite a strain in her left leg, Peng breezed through, and her opponent only managed to avoid two love games.

A smiling Peng said after the game in the Hisense Arena that the strain would not affect too much her next round.

She is going to play with Xu Yifan against Japan's Kimiko Date-Krumm and Australian Dellacqua Casey later in the morning.