It was Konta’s first appearance in the main draw of the Australian Grand Slam but it took her just an hour and 19 minutes to win 6-4, 6-2 against number-eight seed Williams who was competing for the 16th time at Melbourne Park.
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The top seed had to survive a tough opening match against Italian Camila Giorgi but destroyed the 90th-ranked Hsieh in exactly one hour in glorious sunshine at Rod Laver Arena.
Konta will now face the Czech Republic’s world number 66 Denisa Allertova, to whom she lost in three sets in the French Open first round a year ago.
Focused from the outset, she showed none of the vulnerability some were expecting after her four-month layoff following last year’s US Open. 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.
“It’s actually something that I had to add, because I was getting really frustrated losing to my hitting partner all the time”.
Andy Murray was set to open night play at Margaret Court Arena against Australian Sam Groth, while Lleyton Hewitt was to play David Ferrer in what could be the Australian veteran’s last match before retiring.
Williams, who hadn’t completed a competitive match since her bid for a calendar-year Grand Slam in 2015 ended in semifinal defeat at the U.S. Open, was on court warming up when tennis authorities held a joint news conference at Melbourne Park to refute reports from the BBC and Buzzfeed News that match-fixing had gone unchecked in tennis.
“I’m more excited than nervous now”, Murray said of the pending arrival.
“Because I know when I was growing up – I mean, certainly throughout my whole career – I was never warned about that or told about that or anyone said to me how you should handle that if you’re in that situation”. “Today, again, I just wanted to stay focused for the whole time”.
Djokovic kept Chung at bay at first, then gradually started to dominate en route to an uneventful 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 victory to reach the second round in Melbourne.
“But that’s normal and I’m going to encounter that every single time I play”.
Two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova beat Thai qualifier Luksika Kumkhum, avenging her upset loss in the first round here in 2014, and No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska beat Christina McHale 6-2, 6-3.
On the men’s side, No. 13 Milos Raonic followed up his win over Roger Federer in the final of the Brisbane International tune-up event with a 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 win over Lucas Pouille, and No. 32 Joao Sousa beat Mikhail Kukushkin 6-3, 6-4, 6-3. “I’m not good at those”, she said.
Federer will next play Grigor Dimitrov, who has a style that has been compared with Federer’s, after the No. 27-seeded player beat Marco Trungelliti 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, 7-5.
Sharapova, the 2008 champion and four-time finalist at Melbourne Park, dropped two service games in the first set, including once when serving at 5-1, but was otherwise consistent except for some over-hit ground strokes.
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The start of the year’s first Grand Slam tournament was overshadowed by corruption allegation, and Novak Djokovic recalled his own brush with match-fixing when he was offered $200,000 to throw a match.
