Konta, who was born in Sydney and spent her childhood in Australia, would be welcomed back with open arms after a disappointing first round by Australia’s women, with former US Open champion Sam Stosur among the casualties.
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On Tuesday, the No. 8-seeded Williams was forcefully dispatched by Johanna Konta of Great Britain 6-4, 6-2. She was broken five times and has now lost before the third round three straight times in Melbourne.
Williams is the highest-seeded player on either side to exit so far.
For five sets and almost five hours, two chiseled Spanish left-handers went head-to-head again at the Australian Open.
Below, you’ll find results from pertinent seeded matchups, and you can find the full results for the second day of play in Melbourne here. I obviously will ask Venus what she thought of the match, and I’m sure (coach) Patrick (Mouratoglou) will know everything about her match and stuff. As it turned out, she lasted 79 minutes. “I just want to win every point when I’m out here so if my racquet doesn’t do it, I just get my body to do it”, the world number one shrugged afterwards.
His all-or-nothing approach was shown by his 91 unforced errors as he trailed Nadal by two sets to one in an awesome hitting display on Rod Laver Arena.
It was the eighth time she has lost in the first round of a Grand Slam tournament and the third in Australia, where she reached the quarterfinals in her first appearance in 1998 and lost the final to her youngest sister, Serena, in 2003.
Davis ranked No. 103, dismissed the 26 seed, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the first round, and received a retirement from Magdalena Rybarikova in the second.
Trying to move on from the Vinci shocker, Williams was clearly bored by the time the fourth question came around.
Venus is 0-2 this season but still seems capable of doing damage in the first week of Grand Slam events. Konta is ranked No. 47 among WTA players. Venus had brought home more than $32 million in official prize money – more than $31 million more than her 24-year-old opponent.
But Konta’s victory wasn’t exactly a surprise.
Serena, meanwhile, is on course for a quarter-final with one of her oldest rivals, Maria Sharapova, in what would be a rematch of their final here previous year.
On another sizzling day in Melbourne, sweat-drenched Murray doused the challenge of exciting German prospect Alexander Zverev 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 to get his campaign underway.
But the six-time victor felt her movement was back.
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“She’s definitely a tricky opponent and I think it was a good matchup for me to play someone like that who can hit any shot at anytime anywhere on the court”. Sharapova started her second round match right where she left off in the first, dominating Sasnovich for the whole match. “She’s playing well, and the best part of it is not only is she playing well, she’s playing consistent”.
