Groth, the fastest server on tour, had just six aces and was broken seven times.
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The world No 3 likes nothing more than fending off the heavy hitters and had too much craft for his hard-hitting opponent, using his full repertoire of clever passing shots and teasing lobs to disarm Groth. “I enjoy playing here so much; this is one of my favourite courts in the world”.
Sousa defeated Mikhail Kukushkin 6-3 6-4 6-3 and followed that up with a 6-3 7-5 3-6 6-1 success against Santiago Giraldo to set up a seventh meeting with Murray.
With four-time losing finalist Murray aiming to break his Melbourne duck, Petchey feels one man will be standing in his way once again.
After the big guns came out firing yesterdat, the Australian Open continued last night.
“Obviously, the story is not good for the image of the sport but from a players’ point of view, I don’t think everyone is being tarred with the same brush”, Murray told Australian newspaper The Age.
“We always talk about that Davis Cup win for Djokovic, when he went on to have his best year in 2011, the same thing’s kind of happening for Murray at the moment”.
Hewitt, who played his first Australian Open in 1997, won his first title at 16 and was the youngest player ever to hold the No. 1 ranking at 20 years, 8 months, was joined on court by his three children. It’s easy to get impatient.
“He’s a good mover, a good athlete”.
After his second-round win, he was asked about an Italian newspaper report casting doubt over his performance in a match against Fabrice Santoro in Paris in 2007. He understands the game well and he gets the most out of his game.
This was only the third time in her 14 grand slam matches that Konta has been the expected victor based on rankings, with the other two occasions coming in the less pressured first rounds, but she showed few signs of the nerves that once crippled her at the top level.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – There’s a reason why Lleyton Hewitt could keep tennis fans awake until after 4 in the morning, even when he was playing at home, years after winning Grand Slam titles in far-away NY or London.
Konta will now face the Czech world No 66 Denisa Allertova, to whom she lost in three sets in the French Open first round past year. He started off the match not serving so well, which helped me. Fernando Verdasco lost 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4) to Dudi Sela.
Murray, Marray, Colin Fleming, Alan MacDonald (Murray’s coach) and Jamie Delgado (Gilles Müller’s coach) are sharing an apartment here.
“Potentially, someone’s dying and we’re not sure what’s going on”, the Australian said.
The final set lasted just 23 minutes, with Mahut’s 34th birthday proving an unhappy one. Unfortunately for Sousa he’s a solid player out there; solid players don’t get it done against the big four, you have to have something big.
“We’ve all been eating together”, he said.
‘It was a bit of an elephant in the room but we were laughing about it a bit. “That’s the best part of his game”.
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The last of the second round matches – of the lower section of the draw – were played on Thursday, and unlike some of the shockers seen on the opening couple of days, there weren’t any surprises this time round.
