Alex de Minaur and Daria Kasatkina, Australia's biggest Wimbledon hopes, have been left relieved to avoid joining the legion of seeds who've already been scattered at this shock-laden Wimbledon as they battled into the third round.
In perfect sunny conditions on Thursday (Friday AEST), de Minaur brushed off a woeful first set against French qualifier Arthur Cazaux before regrouping and eventually showing some signs of his best in a 4-6 6-2 6-4 6-0 victory.
Then after another Sydneysider Aleksandar Vukic had been crushed by the full power of world No.1 Jannik Sinner, the other national No.1 Kasatkina came through her second-round arm wrestle with old Romanian rival Irina-Camelia Begu 6-2 4-6 6-1.
So there'll be at least three Australians in the last 32, with injury-hampered Jordan Thompson having heroically made it into the third round with his second successive five-set win on Wednesday -- and Rinky Hijikata not quite out of it after his match was suspended late on Thursday.
And the really encouraging news for world No.11 de Minaur is that he'll next be facing Denmark's August Holmgren, a player ranked 181 places below him who knocked out the Czech 21st seed Tomas Machac in the second longest match of the championships lasting four hours 38 minutes.
Fifteen of the 32 men's seeds had already fallen in the first two rounds, and 15 of the women's - and there were brief moments of concern that both de Minaur and Kasatkina, the newest recruit for Australian tennis, might join them.
"It just shows you, this sport, it's not easy out there. Anything can happen on any given day," sighed de Minaur.
And though his victory, featuring 14 unforced errors in the opening set and 31 in all, suggested plenty of work to be done still, he was grateful he didn't suffer the same second-round calamity of the French Open when beaten by Alexander Bublik.
De Minaur had never been knocked out of a grand slam by anyone as lowly-ranked as No.115 Cazaux but there were alarm bells ringing once the fluid server from Montpellier took advantage of de Minaur's early lapses on a packed No.2 Court.
But urged on at courtside by his Davis Cup captain and last Australian men's Wimbledon winner Lleyton Hewitt, de Minaur stirred, nearly doubled his first-serve percentage of 33 percent to 63 percent and swept to level the set scores.
Cazaux's spirit was broken after a tight second set as de Minaur felt freed up to demonstrate why he's determined to surpass his quarter-final berth in last year's event, feeding the dispirited Frenchman a 41-minute 'bagel' set.
His next opponent Holmgren will have to recover from a marathon in which he finally kayoed Machac 7-6 (7-5) 6-8 (8-10) 6-7 (5-7) 7-5 7-6 (7-5).
Kasatkina, the 16th seed, has beaten 34-year-old Begu more times than she's defeated any other player, so it looked a perfect draw as she swept through the first set, only for the veteran to hit back with some laser shotmaking in the second.
But Kasatkina recovered her poise, earned an early break in the decider and then reeled off the final four games to book what looks a much more challenging third-round encounter with 18th seed Liudmila Samsonova, who's already knocked out star teenage Australian Maya Joint.
Sydneysider Vukic gave Carlos Alcaraz a few worries last year on No.1 Court but his latest big-match date on Centre proved a bloodless affair as he was taken apart by Sinner 6-1 6-1 6-3 in an hour and 40 minutes, with his most notable resistance emerging at the death when he saved five match points.
In the evening gloom, Hijikata was given the chance to fight another day - just - when, astonishingly, his match with Ben Shelton was suspended in near-darkness at 9.30pm with the dominant American 10th seed leading 6-2 7-5 5-4 and about to serve for the match.
Shelton was outraged, complaining to the chair umpire, while Hijikata was already zooming off court. The match will be resumed on Friday.
Earlier, Australia's Olympic men's doubles champions, the 15th seeds John Peers and Matt Ebden, bowed out in the opening round, losing 6-3 6-4 to Czech pair Petr Nouza and Patrik Rikl.