Red-hot Edmund offers hope for life after Murray
HOW fortuitous it would be for British tennis if, in the prolonged absence of Andy Murray, Kyle edmund announced himself as a serious elite player, as if on demand.
It could yet happen with the young Yorkshireman, just turned 23, finding himself as the highest ranked player left in his portion of the Australian Open draw that leads to next week’s quarter-finals.
edmund helped clear the path with his first-round elimination of 11th seed Kevin Anderson and he could make it to the last 16 if he comes through a winnable match against Nikoloz Basilashvili, the big-hitting world No 61 from Georgia.
With Jo Konta hoping to join him in the third round when she played America’s Bernarda Pera earlier today, edmund raised a wary eyebrow when the subject of ploughing his own furrow in Murray’s absence was raised. ‘Maybe I get asked that question more times,’ he said after an impressive 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 win over Denis Istomin, who knocked out Novak Djokovic here last year.
‘ My preparation and stuff doesn’t change because Andy is here or isn’t. I still go through the same process.
‘When I’m on court, I don’t start thinking, “I’m the only Briton”. I might play worse, I might play better, it doesn’t go through my head.’
Of more concern to him will be the furnace-like conditions expected for his next match, especially after allowing himself to get burnt by underdoing the suncream in his five- set firstround match. ‘I have to pause to think because of my pale skin. I have to take responsibility. My mum gives me a lecture if I don’t,’ he said in his undemonstrative way.
edmund was born in Johannesburg but came to live in the east Riding when an infant. It is not as if he is used to the potential 40- degree temperatures but he has been visiting Australia since the juniors.
‘One year I was here and they stopped matches because it got to 42°C and they have that heat rule. But we were actually practising at that time. It’s not so much that it is tough playing in it. It’s the accumulation of hours that wears you down.’
It was well into the 30s yesterday but there were no adverse effects. edmund served so well, landing 67 per cent of his first deliveries, that he never let Istomin get in the match.
he defeated Basilashvili — who blasts more than his share of winners and errors — in four sets at the 2016 French Open. If he can repeat that result he would face either the giant Ivo Karlovic or Italy’s Andreas Seppi, both ranked below his listing of 49.
Rafael Nadal will face Bosnia’s Damir Dzumhur and while edmund — who insisted he has not looked at the draw — has the quarter-finals as an aspiration, the Spaniard already looks a near certainty to make that stage.
That the women’s draw is the less predictable of the two was shown again yesterday by the remarkable comeback that second seed Caroline Wozniacki needed to stage against littleknown Croatian Jana Fett.
The Dane trailed 1-5, 15-40 in the final set but doggedly kept the ball in play to win it eventually 7-5 and keep her hopes of a first Grand Slam title alive.