Konta out but Sharapova marches on

Johanna Konta was knocked out of the Porsche Grand Prix in the second round by Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova.

The British No 1 is inexperienced on clay at the highest level and it showed in a scrappy 6-3 7-5 loss to Sevastova, who also won their meeting at the US Open last year.

Wednesday’s first-round victory over Naomi Osaka in Stuttgart was just Konta’s third WTA Tour win on clay.

Maria Sharapova recorded the second victory of her comeback to reach the quarter-finals.

After an ultimately comfortable win against Roberta Vinci in the first round on Wednesday, Sharapova stepped up a level to beat fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova 7-5 6-1.

Speaking in an on-court interview on BT Sport, the 30-year-old said: “It was definitely great to come out and play matches and being in the quarter-finals here again is quite special.”

The five-time grand slam champion generated huge power off her groundstrokes and wore down dogged Makarova over an hour and 19 minutes.

Johanna Konta during her loss to Anastasija Sevastova.