Konta’s seeing the fruits of her labours
JO KONTA was in high spirits yesterday – and she had every right to be. She had just walloped Madison Brengle 6-3, 6-1 to book her place in the second round of the Australian Open.
There was no hint of the hip injury that caused her to pull out of her quarter-final match in Brisbane 12 days ago, no sign of the mental jitters that cost her opening match in Sydney last week, and not a trace of the foot problems that blighted the end of her 2017 season. Konta was very good, and Brengle could not cope.
“I was actually really enjoying being out there,” said Konta cheerily. “It was a nice day, it was sunny and it was quite a full stadium. I tried to absorb the atmosphere a bit.
“I was really excited to play. It was a great first round for me to fight through and stay strong in the way I wanted to play out there.”
Since Konta arrived in Melbourne, the only thing that has gone wrong has been her shopping; she left it behind in the supermarket.
“I only bought blueberries, two punnets but left them there,” she said. “It’s five dollars. I won’t get back.”
Despite this financial and culinary catastrophe, Konta was upbeat. When a terribly serious American scribe tried to ask a humourless question about development – if Konta was a late bloomer in tennis, had she been a late bloomer in any other areas of life? – she decided to have a little fun.
“I didn’t chase boys when I was young,” she said with a giggle, “I didn’t kiss a boy until…”
And then she threatened to describe other aspects of her development as a teenage girl, ones that had the male half of the press corps looking decidedly uneasy.
What she is not taking lightly is next opponent Bernarda Pera, the world No123 from the United States. Pera flies so low under the radar not even the WTA’s website appears to have any information about her. Konta knows what she looks like but that is about all.
She does know, though, that the fickle Melbourne weather will have changed by tomorrow and the temperature is predicted to be 36 degrees or higher. Fortunately, she spent the first 13 years of her life in Australia, so the conditions are hardly alien to her.
“I do have memories of playing in hot conditions,”
SPORT IN BRIEF
said Konta. “Sometimes the body is not completely cooperating and it’s like, ‘Listen, I’m not a fan of this today, I don’t want to do this’. So you try to adapt and make sure you do everything you can in hydrating well and staying cool at the change of ends.
“But it’s also having a good level of acceptance that it’s going to feel uncomfortable but knowing that it’s feeling uncomfortable for everybody.”
Heather Watson was certainly feeling that way yesterday. The British No2 lost 7-5, 7-6 to Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan, leaving Konta and Kyle Edmund as the only Britons left in the singles. Novak Djokovic, on the other hand, only looked uncomfortable when he faced the world’s media yesterday. He breezed through his first match in six months, testing out his fragile elbow with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 thumping of Donald Young, the world No63. It was only when the talk turned to the subject of the ATP players’ meeting last Saturday that his expression changed. Denying almost every detail that had been reported – from the suggestion he wanted players to boycott next year’s Australian Open in order to force the Grand Slams to give the players more prize money, to the reports that he brought a lawyer with him to the meeting – he distanced himself from the controversy.
Roger Federer, left, by contrast, was utterly unflappable as he cruised past Aljaz Bedene 6-3, 6-4, 6-3.
Bedene, who has reverted to playing under the Slovenia flag after an unsuccessful fight to play for Britain, was tidy but, up against the champion and favourite to win a sixth Australian title, he was merely making up the numbers.