Melbourne (AFP)

It's already over for Benoît Paire, Grégoire Barrère, Caroline Garcia and Fiona Ferro at the Australian Open where, in conditions made difficult by a very strong wind, they were eliminated on Wednesday in the second round.

The four Tricolores in the running on this third day in Melbourne lost and there are only four of the 18 remaining: Gaël Monfils, Gilles Simon, Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Alizé Cornet will try to reach the third round on Thursday.

Certainly violent, the wind did not destabilize the defenders of the title Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic, nor the world N.1 Ashleigh Barty.

While waiting for Serena Williams and Roger Federer in the evening, Osaka dismissed the Chinese Saisai Zheng (42nd) 6-2, 6-4 in 1:20, Djokovic defeated the Japanese Tatsuma Ito (146th) 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 in 1h35 and Barty sent the Slovenian Polona Hercog (48th) 6-1, 6-4 in 1h06.

For Garcia, in addition to the wind she hates, it is the physical that did not hold.

Because, after a start with a fanfare, she lost the thread of the match and allowed the Tunisian Ons Jabeur (78th) to win 1-6, 6-1, 6-3, as she did in August at first round of the last US Open.

"At the end of last year I regressed physically, I dropped a lot and compared to my game I need a lot of intensity, to be very fast on my legs. It's a work in progress ", said the 26-year-old Frenchwoman, being very evasive about this" work in progress ".

- "Slow and soft" -

"By the end of last year I had become slow and limp," she simply commented.

"It is up to me to work physically and tennis to hold this intensity over two or three sets and these games I will spend," she added.

She has not passed the second round of a Grand Slam tournament since the Australian Open last year, where she lost in the third round.

Paire (21st), who lost in the 1st round last year, did not cross the second step either: after a marathon match the day before, he lost to the super tie break of the 5th set against Marin Cilic (39th) 2-6, 7-6 (8/6), 6-3, 1-6, 6-7 (3/10) after a spectacular match of 3:36.

The 30-year-old Avignon player alternated between bloodstrokes and winning strokes, but he lost a series of seven consecutive points in this super tie break and thus forfeited the game to the former world N.4 who had was a finalist in Melbourne in 2018.

- Extension -

Barrère, however, still failed to pass the second round of a Grand Slam contest. At the Australian Open, where he played for the first time the main draw, the player who will be 26 years old on February 16 was stopped by the Argentinian Guido Pella (25th) 6-1, 6-4, 4- 6, 6-3.

His best result in a Major tournament therefore remains the 2nd round he reached at Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open last year.

Ferro was finally completely overwhelmed by Chinese Qiang Wang (29th) 6-1, 6-2 in an hour.

Good news for the tournament is the qualification of the teenager Coco Gauff who, after having once again eliminated Venus Williams in the first round, as at Wimbledon last year, sidelined Sorana Cirstea (74th) 4-6, 6- 3, 7-5 and will face Osaka.

Caroline Wozniacki, 36th in the world, has offered herself a career extension. By eliminating the Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska (21st) 7-5, 7-5, she added an additional match to her program, having decided to leave the circuit at the end of this tournament which she won in 2018.

© 2020 AFP