Five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova beat 14th seed Anastasija Sevastova in straight sets on Thursday to reach the last 32 of the Australian Open.
The Russian, beaten in three sets by the Latvian at the US Open last year, won 6-1 7-6 (7-4) in one hour and 20 minutes.
Sharapova, 30, was broken when serving for the match at 5-4, but recovered to win the tie-break on Rod Laver Arena.
"I'm happy to get through on a day like this," said the 2008 champion.
"When she broke back I thought: 'Oh, it's going to be three sets again."
Sharapova will face either Germany's 2016 Australian Open winner Angelique Kerber or Croatia's Donna Vekic in the third round, according to a BBC report.
Meanwhile, sixth seed Karolina Pliskova stormed past Brazil's Beatriz Haddad Maia, winning 6-1 6-1 in 44 minutes, but 2017 semi-finalist Mirjana Lucic-Baroni was defeated 6-3 6-1 by Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich.
French eighth seed Caroline Garcia also progressed, prevailing 6-7 (3-7) 6-2 8-6 over Czech Marketa Vondrousova in a match that fell just short of the two-and-a-half-hour mark.
Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska, a semi-finalist twice in the past four tournaments at Melbourne, needed three sets to see off Ukriane's Lesia Tsurenko as she won 2-6 7-5 6-3.
Radwanska, the 26th seed, will play Chinese Taipei's Hsieh Su-Wei next after the world number 88 shocked Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza 7-6 (7-1) 6-4.
