On the men’s side, No. 10 American John Isner fired 20 aces and 53 winners in a 6-3, 7-6 (7-5), 7-6 (7-2) win over Marcel Granollers of Spain, No. 23 Gael Monfils beat fellow Frenchman Nicolas Mahut 7-5, 6-4, 6-1 and No. 32 Joao Sousa of Portugal beat Santiago Giraldo of Colombia 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 6-1. I didn’t serve a high percentage of first serves.
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The Scot continued: “Was I surprised he said it? Once I started to hit the ball a little bit cleaner towards the end of the match I was able to get him in his backhand corner and dictate more of the points”.
Murray said he felt sorry for innocent players being accused of match-fixing but believes more accountability is the only way to root out corruption. “It was tricky. I didn’t feel great”.
Groth, ranked 67th in the world and born in New South Wales, boasts the fastest recorded serve in the world at 263kmh and he announced ahead of the match he would go all-out attack with pace, power and serve and volley.
The strategy, however, proved disastrous as the world number two won 31 out of Groth’s 46 ventures to the net and broke his opponent’s serve seven times in total.
Finally, after the best part of three quarters of an hour, Groth held serve and even staged a comeback, breaking Murray and holding again to level at 4-4. An hour-and-a-half later, Murray had marmalised the world No67 with the biggest serve in the game so completely that he left the very clear impression he is in great shape to reach his fifth final here. “He can use different spins and stuff”, Murray said. I could have done that better.
“Although in the next round those things will still be important, I’m aware that there’s going to be a lot of longer rallies and it’s about being more solid and consistent from the back of the court, so this time we’ll spend more time in practice working on groundstrokes”. Murray had won two points with lobs and at deuce Groth clearly expected the same treatment after charging into the net, but the Scot beat him with a passing shot.
“It helps to see someone’s game”.
He “made it viral and we happen to have the same agent, so I wanted to make my agent smile first”, said Azarenka, who next plays promising Japanese slugger Naomi Osaka. I think I played well and I have been playing better and better against him.
“He’s a very good mover, good athlete”.
“He’s a good athlete and he wins”.
“I would actually like to know if there was any match that I was involved in that had any irregular betting patterns around it or anything like that”.
Wawrinka, who added the French Open title past year to his 2014 Australian Open title, takes on unseeded Lukas Rosol.
It’s the second time in three days that a major medical disturbance has occurred in the crowd after a woman suffered an apparent seizure during Australian Bernard Tomic’s first round match on Tuesday.
“Obviously there’s tension, there’s nerves from me, my opponent, the hundreds of people around me and the situation as it is in the match”, Konta said.
After just 30 minutes Murray wrapped up a first set that was characterised by return winners and unplayable lobs from the Briton, and not one ace from the Australian.
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Konta, fresh from her first-round dismantling of Venus Williams at the Rod Laver Arena, found herself back on the peripheral Court 8 on a damp and grey morning in Melbourne Park. “There was a really good atmosphere out there”.
