Radwanska plays through the pain to reach last 16

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Agnieszka Radwanska, playing through the pain of a leg injury, rode an opening set onslaught to take a place in the last 16 of the Australian Open with a 6-4 6-0 victory over Monica Puig on Friday.

The fourth seed was forced to pull out of the Sydney warm-up because of her troublesome left leg and had lengthy medical treatment on it between the two sets in the 76-minute third round match.

“Pain is my second name,” the Pole said. “The spray doesn’t work, the strapping doesn’t work, I just have to get on with. I am used to it. I can still play my best tennis. You just have to deal with it.”

Radwanska looked up against it when the big-hitting Puerto Rican broke for 4-3 in the first set on Margaret Court Arena but the Pole won the next three games to go 1-0 up before racing through the second stanza in just 27 minutes.

“She started really well,” the 26-year-old said. “I didn’t expect that. Everything was going really fast and she was playing with such intensity. I was in big trouble in that first set.”

Radwanska, a semi-finalist at Melbourne Park in 2014, next faces 21-year-old German Anna-Lena Friedsam, who beat last year’s U.S. Open runner up Roberta Vinci in the third round on Friday.

(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Patrick Johnston)