Upwardly mobile Jo continues her good run of form in Sydney
Britain’s Johanna Konta has eased through her first-round qualifying match at the Sydney International with a straight sets victory over Miriam Kolodziejova.
The British No. 1, who was back in action after reaching the last-16 in Brisbane earlier this week, dismissed her Czech opponent 6-3 6-2.
After winning the Sydney tournament in 2017 and reaching the Wimbledon semi-finals in the same year, the former world No. 4 then faced a rocky 18 months, dropping to 37 in the world rankings.
But her year got off to a promising start with a straight sets win over world No. 6 Sloane Stephens in Brisbane – and she displayed the same form again yesterday as she took an early break and a 3-0 lead.
Konta continued to take her chances impressively and broke Kolodziejova, ranked 277th, twice more in the second set, wrapping up the victory in just over an hour.
She will next face Ekaterina Alexandrova. Meanwhile, Naomi Osaka delivered a withering assessment of her performance after she was knocked out of the Brisbane International at the semifinal stage.
The reigning US Open champion and world No. 5 suffered a surprise 6-2 6-4 defeat to Lesia Tsurenko, who set up a final showdown with Karolina Pliskova after the Czech fifth seed dispatched Croatia’s Donna Vekic 6-3 6-4.
Much of the attention fell on Osaka, though, who was at a loss to explain why she struggled for fluency against her Ukrainian opponent.
The Japanese said: “If I’m being really frank, I just feel like I had the worst attitude. I feel like I didn’t really know how to cope with not playing well.
“I was sulking a little bit, and there are moments that I tried not to do that. But then the ball wouldn’t go in, and then I would go back to being childish and stuff.
“I feel like, in a way, that this experience for me is better than winning the tournament, because this helpless feeling I have, I think I learned sort of what I have to do to, not fix it, but what I can do to improve the situation so there aren’t many moments that I feel like that.”
Bianca Andreescu reached her first singles final on the WTA Tour as she claimed another upset win at the ASB Classic in Auckland.
The Canadian qualifier had already seen off top seed Caroline Wozniacki and seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams this week, and she added third seed Hsieh Su-wei to her victims list.
Andreescu clinched a comfortable 6-3 6-3 victory over her Taiwanese opponent to book a final date against second seed Julia Gorges, with the German overcoming Slovakia’s Viktoria Kuzmova 6-1 7-6 (8/6).
World No. 13 Aryna Sabalenka overcame Yafan Wang and Alison Riske to bag the Shenzhen Open title.
The Belarusian thrashed Chinese opponent Yafan 6-2 6-1 in the last four stage before battling back to see off America’s Riske 4-6 7-6 (7/2) 6-3 in the final.
Riske had breezed her way into the showpiece when Russian opponent Vera Zvonareva retired as she trailed 6-0 1-0.