MELBOURNE, Australia — Aryna Sabalenka has advanced to the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, where she’s three wins from achieving something no woman has done since the 1990s.

The two-time defending champion extended her winning streak at Melbourne Park to 18 matches with a 6-1, 6-2 win over 14th-seeded Mirra Andreeva to open play Sunday on Rod Laver Arena.

Martina Hingis, from 1997 to 1999, was the last woman to win three straight Australian Open singles titles.

Sabalenka hugged Andreeva after the match, waved to the crowd, took a photo with her instant camera and gave a thumbs up to mark the occasion.

“It’s just a nice moment. I really like to see all of those pictures. I started from the preseason, and it’s so cute to see these little moments,” she said. “Other than that, I don’t know, I just want to improve myself every day, get better as a player, as a person, and capture great moments.”

She’s won 24 consecutive sets in Melbourne.

“I’m super happy to get through this difficult match in straight sets,” she said of the 62-minute win. “Mirra is so young, so mature, such a great player. Yeah, she can play really great tennis.”

Meanwhile, Coco Gauff’s consecutive-set streak ended at the Australian Open, but her bid for a second Grand Slam title continued with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-1 comeback victory over Belinda Bencic in the fourth round.

Gauff, a 20-year-old from Florida who won the 2023 U.S. Open, had collected all 16 sets she’d played this year and 24 of her past 25 dating to the end of last season, which included a title at the WTA Finals.

But the tournament’s No. 3 seed was unable to control her shots well enough at the start against Bencic in Rod Laver Arena, where the temperature hit 90 degrees.

By the end, Gauff was in total control, and she motioned to the crowd for more noise after a reflex volley to win a point in the final game.

Gauff now faces No. 11 Paula Badosa in the quarterfinals on Tuesday. Badosa defeated Olga Danilovic 6-1, 7-6 (2) to get to the final eight in Melbourne for the first time.

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova also won her fourth-round match today.

Iga Swiatek defeated Emma Raducanu 6-1, 6-0 in a Saturday third-round matchup of the two past Grand Slam champions.

Other third-round winners on the women’s side included Eva Lys, Elena Rybakina, Emma Navarro, Daria Kasatkina. Veronika Kudermetova, Elina Svitolina and Madison Keys.

On the men’s side, No. 4 Taylor Fritz, the runner-up at last year’s U.S. Open, became the highest-seeded man to leave the bracket, defeated by 38-year-old Gael Monfils 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (1), 6-4.

Monfils joined Roger Federer as the only men 38 or older to get to the fourth round in Melbourne since the field expanded to 128 players in 1988.

At the other end of the age spectrum, a pair of young Californians — Learner Tien, 19, and Alex Michelsen, 20 — earned debuts in the fourth round at a major. Ben Shelton, who is 22, won, too.

Tien, a qualifier ranked 121st, scored a 7-6 (10), 6-3, 6-3 victory over Corentin Moutet. Michelsen, who is ranked 42nd, overwhelmed No. 19 Karen Khachanov 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-2. And Shelton defeated No. 16 Lorenzo Musetti 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5).

No. 1 Jannik Sinner eliminated American Marcos Giron 6-3, 6-4, 6-2. Other men’s winners included Holger Rune, Alex de Minaur and Lorenzo Sonego.

Medvedev fined

Ousted Daniil Medvedev has been fined a total of $76,000 for his camera and racket smashing outbursts during the first two rounds.

The 2021 U.S. Open champion destroyed a tiny camera hanging in the net by repeatedly smacking it with his racket during a surprisingly difficult, five-set, first-round win over Kasidit Samrej, who was ranked 418th. He was fined $10,000 for the first-round infringement.

Medvedev was penalized a point during his second-round loss tTien for showing similar signs of frustration. He was fined $66,000 for his second-round code violations.

Medvedev was seeded No. 5 at Melbourne Park, where he was the runner-up in three of the past four years.