Jo breaks her duck

KONTA RELAXES AFTER FIRST WIN AT FRENCH

NEVER again will Jo Konta have to answer questions about her failure to win a match at the French open. It is a touchy subject for the British No1, who rid herself of the unwanted statistic when she made it through to the second round yesterday by seeing off world No 149 Antonia Lottner 6-4, 6-4 in 79 minutes.

Kyle Edmund will try to join her today after his match was suspended at two-sets all, 5-5 last night — while dan Evans and Cam Norrie are also in action.

Konta can relax while safely through. She has always felt that too much of a big deal has been made of her results at the clay court Grand Slam, pointing to previous successes on clay.

She said after her win: ‘I think it was a bigger deal to you guys than it was to me, to be honest.

‘But, obviously, I’m pleased to have come through that match. It’s nice to have won a main-draw match here but I didn’t really look at it too much like that. I think I was just, more than anything, happy to have dealt with the challenges of the game.’

Konta (right) dropped serve three times but broke her opponent on

five occasions to earn herself a match with American wild card Lauren davis, the world No 111. That is another one in which she will fancy her chances.

It is barely a week since Konta made the final of the Italian open and she may be heading for a third-round clash against a player she beat there — one of this fortnight’s favourites, Kiki Bertens of Holland.

Edmund will walk the tightrope today after his pulsating men’s first-round game was dramatically closed down last night when locked in a nerveshredding deciding set. The match against Jeremy Chardy of France was called off at 9.22pm for bad light amid a cacophony of booing and with the scores level at 7-6, 5-7, 6-4, 4-6, 5-5. The pair had played out three hours and 55 minutes of gruelling combat on the clay. There had been nothing to separate the Yorkshireman from the world No40 on the court known as the Bullring — which was throbbing to a partisan atmosphere in the gathering gloom.

Edmund might have got the job done earlier if he had taken the points he had for 5-2 in the second set, and his currently shallow reservoir of confidence was bound to be tested upon the resumption.

Uniquely now, there is no fifth-set tiebreak at this event and it was surely to be a considerable examination for a player who has lacked form during this clay-court season.

There have been several impressive comebacks from French players here already and Chardy did not want to let the side down.

While Edmund’s groundstrokes were at least a match for the strapping baseliner from the Pyrenees, Chardy hit 30 aces, often getting himself out of trouble.

The crowd were very much on his side, although, ironically, it is Chardy who is actually based in London, while Edmund these days calls the Bahamas his home.