Serena Williams, Federer into 3rd round at Australian Open

“I don’t really know”, Serena said. “Today I won”, she told the crowd after her win.

Williams, 35, was enjoying a renaissance of form late a year ago, but was no match for Konta, who raced to a 6-4, 6-2 victory in 79 minutes on Rod Laver Arena for one of the biggest wins of her career.

Konta, born in Sydney, was making her first appearance in Melbourne but did not look out of place as she got stuck into Williams early on, absorbing the five-time Wimbledon champion’s power and manoeuvring her around the court superbly.

“So I was just really focusing on my breathing and just trying to stay very present because it’s never over until you’re shaking hands”.

Ranked 146th in the world at the time, wild card Konta beat fourth seed Makarova 6-2 6-4 to reach the third round.

The six-times Melbourne Park victor and defending champion is aiming to equal Steffi Graf’s Open-era record of 22 Grand Slam titles over the next two weeks.

Venus Williams tried to rally, winning two games and getting another break-point chance after falling a set and 5-0 behind, before her 16th trip to the Australian Open finished in a first-round loss to Johanna Konta. The American crashed out in her season opener in Auckland, and headed straight to Melbourne to prepare while Konta had to make the trop from Shenzhen to Hobart before losing there in the opening round as well.

No. 3 Garbine Muguruza needed exactly an hour to beat Estonian qualifier Anett Kontaveit 6-0, 6-4, No. 11 Timea Bacsinszky advanced over Katerina Siniakova 6-3, 7-5 and No. 15 Madison Keys, a semifinalist here a year ago, had to save set points in the first before beating Zarina Diyas 7-6 (5), 6-1.

Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko shocked 23rd seed Svetlana Kuznetsova as she continues her comeback after having a baby in 2013.

Now, her focus has returned to tennis and the 21-time Grand Slam victor says she’s fit despite her time off and a recent injury.

“To win against Rafa here coming from two sets down is unbelievable”, the 32-year-old, No. 45-ranked Verdasco said.

Sharapova, who won the title in 2008 and has reached three other finals, completed the win in 71 minutes and will next play either Lauren Davis of the United States or Magadalena Rybarikova of Slovakia.

She was taking a liking to Williams’ serve as well and got her first break in the third game to lead 2-1 and then was grateful for a raft of unforced errors as she got a second break to lead 5-2. Her older sister, seven-time major victor Venus Williams, was fined $5,000 on Wednesday for skipping a mandatory news conference following her first-round exit the previous day. “I had to serve well and as the match went on I started to feel better and better”.

No. 13 Milos Raonic followed up his win over Roger Federer in the final of the Brisbane International tune-up event with a 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 win over Lucas Pouille.