MELBOURNE, Australia — Distracted by a time penalty and unable to counteract No. 97-ranked Laura Siegemund’s aggressive approach, Zheng Qinwen’s loss in the second round today fell a long way short of last year’s run to the Australian Open final.

Zheng lost the 2024 decider at Melbourne Park to Aryna Sabalenka and went on to win the Olympic gold medal in Paris and finish runner-up at the WTA Finals in a breakout season.

But her first tournament of the year ended in a 7-6 (3), 6-3 loss at John Cain Arena against 36-year-old Siegemund, who attacked from the first point and put Zheng off her game.

Zheng needed a change of shoes early in the second set, got a time warning on her serve from the chair umpire — she said she couldn’t clearly see the clock — and was worried about some minor issues which sidelined her before the Australian Open.

“I feel maybe today is not my day. There’s a lot of details in the important points. I didn’t do the right choice,” Zheng said.

Of a weak serve that bounced before the net, Zheng said the time warning from the umpire “obviously that one really distracted me from the match.”

“This is my fourth year in the tour, and never happen that to me.”

Both of last year’s women’s finalists were playing at the same time on nearby courts.

Sabalenka, the two-time defending champion, extended her run to 16 wins at Melbourne Park by winning the last five games to beat No. 54-ranked Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 6-3, 7-5.

The score line didn’t indicate the difficulty of the match, with Bouzas Maneiro taking huge swipes at the ball in her Australian Open debut and dictating some of the points against the world No. 1-ranked player. Her serve let her down, with Sabalenka able to relieve some pressure on her own serve with five breaks.

No. 7 Jessica Pegula had a 6-4, 6-2 win over Elise Mertens to reach the third round, along with Belinda Bencic and 17-year-old Mirra Andreeva, the No. 14 seed who beat Moyuka Uchijima 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (8).

Third-seeded Carlos Alcaraz, winner of last year’s French Open and Wimbledon, advanced to the third round with a 6-0, 6-1, 6-4 victory over Yoshihito Nishioka.

In a late match Tuesday, Gael Monfils earned a five-set victory.

The pragmatic pro in Monfils would like to have finished off his first-round win in straight sets against up-and-coming fellow Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard.

The entertainer’s instinct in him got a lot of value out of clinching it in five.

In a duel between the 38-year-old Monfils and 21-year-old Mpetshi Perricard, it was age, experience and endurance that outweighed power and youth — helping nullify one of the biggest serves in tennis.

Days after Monfils became the oldest player to win an ATP Tour title by beating Zizou Bergs the final in Auckland, New Zealand, Monfils wasted match points in the third set and on Mpetshi Perricard’s serve in the fifth before finally closing out a 7-6 (7), 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-4 victory.

Monfils said he usually tries to avoid thinking about age gaps with competitors, “but I can tell you that tomorrow morning I will be (feeling) more 48 than 38.”

“I know ... I can sometimes have the double of the age of the guy. I have, yeah, I think 21 years of career, and he’s 21 years old, Giovanni,” he added. “Of course numbers are there, but I’m fighting, so I try not to put any number in my head.”

There were some other dramatic five-setters, with fifth-seeded Daniil Medvedev, a former U.S. Open champion and three-time finalist in Australia, edging Grand Slam rookie Kasidit Samrej 6-2, 4-6, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 and No. 13 Holger Rune beating Zhang Zhizhen 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

No. 4 Taylor Fritz, runner-up at the U.S. Open and the ATP Finals and part of the U.S. team that won the United Cup last week, needed less than two hours for a 6-2, 6-0, 6-3 win over Jenson Brooksby.