Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime could see the funny side of a supposed Netflix curse that is plaguing competitors at the Australian Open after several players who featured in the docu-series 'Break Point' suffered early eliminations.

Casper Ruud, Ons Jabeur and Matteo Berrettini were among the players featured in Netflix series to exit early, while Nick Kyrgios, Paula Badosa and Ajla Tomljanovic were forced to pull out before it began.

Sixth seed Auger-Aliassime, who also featured in the show, secured a thrilling five-set comeback win over Slovakian Alex Molcan.

When asked about the 'curse' after his third-round win over Francisco Cerundolo on Friday, the 22-year-old told reporters: "My girlfriend showed me today. I wasn't aware. I was aware that players were losing, I'd see players were losing, but it didn't cross my mind until, yeah, she showed me the thing this morning. I thought it was funny.

"I don't know. I don't think it's connected. Maybe the players that lost, maybe they do feel like it's connected somehow. I don't think they do. But, yeah, so funny how things work out sometimes."

Taylor Fritz, another player who appeared in the docu-series, also played down talk of a curse earlier this week, before being eliminated in the second round.

Netflix jokingly addressed the notion of a curse on Twitter, retweeting an image of the players that are no longer in contention at the Australian Open with the caption: "To clarify: this is purely a coincidence..."

However, the curse  reared its head again yesterday, this time claiming women's sixth seed Maria Sakkari, who was shocked 7-6 (7/3), 1-6, 6-4 by an emotional world number 87 Zhu Lin of China.

Zhu had lost all seven of her previous encounters against top-10 players. "Is this real? Am I in a dream?" she sobbed. "Thank you, my team, and thank you for pushing me every day," she said, looking to her player's box.

In another stunnning upset, though not Netflix-related, Sebastian Korda stunned Daniil Medvedev 7-6(7) 6-3 7-6(4) to evict the losing finalist of the last two years from the Australian Open in the third round yesterday.

The 29th seed, son of 1998 Australian Open champion Petr, prevailed in a thrilling tiebreak to win an 85-minute opening set and needed only one break to seal the second.

There was no wobble from women's world No. 1 Iga Swiatek though, as crushed Spanish qualifier Cristina Bucsa 6-0, 6-1 in just 55 minutes to set up a showdown with Wimbledon title-holder Elena Rybakina for a place in the quarterfinals.