After winning the Apia International Sydney title in the build-up to Melbourne, British Johanna Konta is going strong at the season’s first Grand Slam, demolishing former world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the third round, 6-3 6-1. Displaying her best game, the ninth-ranked Konta made Wozniacki look like a low-ranked player by winning nine consecutive games from 2-3 in the first set to 5-0 in the second set. In the first set, Konta hit 20 winners to Wozniacki’s one, but it’s not that the 17th-seeded Dane played horribly, rather, the 25-year-old Konta was very aggressive, powerful and precise.
In the fourth round, Konta will face seed No.30 Ekaterina Makarova, who eliminated sixth seed Dominika Cibulkova in a 6-2 6-7(3) 6-3 marathon, despite wasting a 4-0 40-30 lead in the second set.
Serena Williams, Konta’s potential quarterfinal opponent, didn’t have to fire up even half of her engines to dispatch fellow American Nicole Gibbs 6-1 6-3. The second seed’s fourth-round opponent will be seed No.16 Barbora Strycova, who beat Caroline Garcia 6-2 7-5 and stated this about her next obstacle: “She’s human, and she is beatable. This is a Grand Slam, and we are talking that she already won, but I don’t like these talks.”
After upsetting Agnieszka Radwanska in the previous round, thirty-four-year-old Mirjana Lucic-Baroni advanced to the last 16 for the first time with a 3-6 6-2 6-3 win over Maria Sakkari. Next up for her is American qualifier Jennifer Brady, who followed up her second-round win over Heather Watson by defeating 14th seed Elena Vesnina 7-6(4) 6-2. (photo: Jimmie48)
I love to watch Caro tennis and I am so sad she is out. I am do not a big fan of konta tennis.
Makarova agen play her best tennis. Serena is also beck. Garcia continues her good 2016 season. Lucic-Baroni has incredibly tournament. Brady is the new coming of the tennis and she also play incredibly. What do you think who win the tournament?
wow konta is looking like a major threat to serena at this years aus open! Impressive!
Jim, thanks for sharing that. I didn’t even know he was engaged again! From what I can read at the link, he really didn’t mention Caro anywhere and I don’t think he wanted to refer to her publicly on purpose. Although, I don’t want to defend him in any way, I despise what he did to Caro! I actually think about the way he broke up with her every now and then. It’s the worst breakup I’ve ever heard about! Having said all this, from her comment I can conclude that she was affected by his statement. Plus, he’s already engaged again and I think she hasn’t dated since the breakup.
SharapovaFan, I’ll not have an intriguing pick here, I’ll have to say Serena.
Jo Konta was indeed dominant over Caro, but the Woz seemed to be in La La land. Was this because she was goaded by the press about some comment her ex Rory McIlroy made recently that may or may not have been referring to his relationship with her. Saw an interesting blog about it on the Golf Channel site..see below (where BTW) I predicted in a comment that Ms. Konta would defeat Ms. Woziacki.
[link expired]