Ashleigh Barty shrugged off the absence of a home crowd as she eased into the fourth round of the Australian Open.
Having stayed in Australia when the tour resumed largely behind closed doors last summer, this was a new experience for Barty as Melbourne's coronavirus lockdown kept the fans away for the first of at least five days.
Barty trailed Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova in both sets but recovered strongly to win 6-2 6-4 and set up a clash with American Shelby Rogers in the last 16.
"It was very different conditions," said Svitolina, who like Barty chose to miss the US Open last year. "I played a night match at 7pm with a good crowd. Now it was completely different. It was for sure a bit disturbing, I would say, in some ways sad.
"But it is what it is. I had to accept. I had to have a good mindset, not thinking too much about that. I just tried to focus on my game.
"I actually had a few thoughts about it, it feels like a practice match. I tried to convince myself that it's a grand slam and that we are playing an important match."
Svitolina came back from a break down in the first set to rattle off nine successive games and book her place in the fourth round, where she will play unseeded American Jessica Pegula.
Sixth seed Karolina Pliskova was punished for smashing a racket off court after losing her cool during a 7-5 7-5 loss to fellow Czech Karolina Muchova.
After breaking one racket during the first set, which earned her a code violation, she took her frustration out on a second racket as she left the court and received another violation, which saw Muchova awarded the first point of the second set.
Pliskova, who has now failed to reach the quarter-finals at the last seven grand slams, stormed into a 5-0 lead in the second set only to lose seven games in a row.
Donna Vekic was staring defeat in the face before staging an impressive comeback to beat Kaia Kanepi.
Kanepi, who beat defending champion Sofia Kenin in the second round, had another seed in her sights when she led by a set and 3-0 only for the Croatian to produce her best and claim a 5-7 7-6 (2) 6-4 victory.
Vekic will take on 22nd seed Jennifer Brady next while Muchova will meet 18th seed Elise Mertens, who is having another fine run in Melbourne and raced past 11th seed Belinda Bencic 6-2 6-1.
