Konta crashes out on bad day for Brits
BRITAIN’S leading singles players suffered a shuddering pre-Wimbledon reality check yesterday when the rain stopped long enough to allow top-class international opposition to get at them. While Jo Konta was ousted from the second round in Birmingham, four of five male players have now been knocked out in the Fever-Tree Championships’ first round. Only Kyle Edmund was left hanging on, trailing 6-3, 3-3 to top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas when an evening shower curtailed his match. Earlier, Dan Evans survived an injury scare to his knee after a nasty fall but lost 6-3, 6-4 to three-time Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka, ending Evans’ 10-match winning streak. Jay Clarke, given a wildcard for Wimbledon, went down 7-6, 6-1 to France’s Lucas Pouille, the world No 29. That continued British woes from Monday, when James Ward and Cameron Norrie were beaten by Kevin Anderson and Gilles Simon respectively. Meanwhile, Konta failed to make it beyond the second round in Birmingham for the seventh year in a row, crashing out in straight sets to Jelena Ostapenko. The British No 1 was frustrated by the big-hitting former French Open champion, who won 6-3, 6-4, but concluded that ‘there’s not much I could have done differently’. Konta spurned four break points in the first game and was broken in the second by 22-year-old Ostapenko. She struggled to make an impact for the remainder of the set and was broken again early in the second set. Despite levelling at 3-3, she was instantly broken back and lost in 79 minutes. Ostapenko reached last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals but has struggled this season, and said afterwards that her confidence is building again. She warned that ‘once I have it, I’ll be a dangerous player’. Konta, who enjoyed a stunning run to the last four at Roland Garros, had seen off Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit 6-4, 6-2 in the first round. On Ostapenko’s attacking play, she added: ‘It is quite frustrating to be on the court against her. It felt like any mistake I made had a bigger consequence, because I had so few opportunities in the match and so few windows to try to build any momentum or string points together.’