Serena Williams Into Australian Open 3rd Round

She fell behind 5-0 in the second set before Konta started to tighten up and Williams found her range to get a break back and hold serve at love for 5-2.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga went to the aid of a ball girl in his match, gently helping her off the court in the third set when she became ill before finishing off a 7-5, 6-1, 6-4 win over Omar Jasika.

No players were identified in the reports, which alleged 16 players had been flagged repeatedly with tennis authorities but not sanctioned on suspicion of match fixing.

The governing bodies for the sport, and the Tennis Integrity Unit, issued a joint statement, read by ATP chairman Chris Kermode at a hastily-convened news conference at Melbourne Park. That approach didn’t reach him directly, he said, and was rejected immediately.

She was licking her lips every time she came up against Willams’ serve, breaking three times in a row and holding twice to race into a virtually unassailable 5-0 lead where she dropped just seven points.

Turning 36 this year, Williams’ chances of capturing an elusive first Australian Open crown appear all but over.

“It made me feel bad because I don’t want to be anyhow linked to this kind of – you know, somebody may call it an opportunity”, he said.

“I’d rather support them in another sport”. “I said everything I needed to say two days ago. The higher it goes, the more surprised I would be, no doubt about it”.

He beat 19-year-old French wildcard entry Quentin Halys 6-1, 6-2, 7-6 (3) on Wednesday night to reach the third round here for the 10th straight year, moving another step closer to equaling the all-time record of six Australian titles set by Roy Emmerson in the 1960s when it was amateur.

Like Djokovic, Williams won three of the four major titles last season, but hadn’t finished a competitive match for months.

“My first one I think”, she said.

She thinks it’s cool to do something fresh and new after all this time, but she’s never tried a “tweener” (between-the-legs shot) in a match and that’s not about to change.

“I don’t know if I have done that”, she added.

Earlier, Sharapova becoae the first player to advance to the third round at the when she beat Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus 6-2 6-1.

Federer, playing his 65th major, advanced 6-3, 7-5, 6-1 over Alexandr Dolgopolov.

On the men’s side, 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, and No. 32 Joao Sousa beat Mikhail Kukushkin, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3.

Joining him the second round will be No. 10 John Isner, No. 18 Feliciano Lopez, No. 23 Gael Monfils, No. 30 Jeremy Chardy, No. 31 Steve Johnson and No. 32 Joao Sousa.

Fourth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska has ended Eugenie Bouchard’s strong start to the year with a 6-4, 6-2 win in a match featuring two former Wimbledon finalists in the second round at Melbourne Park.

No. 24 Sloane Stephens, a semifinalist in 2013, lost 6-3, 6-3 to Chinese qualifier Wang Qiang.