What to Watch on Friday at the Australian Open

The first round of this year’s Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne brought some epic upsets.

The British No 1, who shocked Venus Williams in the first round, beat Saisai Zheng of China on Thursday in front of a vocal crowd.

In the best matchup of the second round, fourth-seed Agnieszka Radwanska took on former top 5 player Eugenie Bouchard.

“She’s a tricky opponent who I think was a good match-up for me”, Williams said.

“I’m just happy I was able to deal with it the best I could and come through”.

Johanna Konta is hoping she can get the better of Denisa Allertova when the duo meet in the Australian Open third round.

Serena Williams was asked about her US Open loss on Wednesday. I’m aware of the code and how to handle these situations and I know a lot of players are very much reading up on it and making themselves prepared for this sort of situation.

Part of the reason is he can’t see himself sitting in the player’s box watching his daughters’ matches after he retires.

Serena Williams cruised to a second-round win over Taiwan’s Su-Wei Hsieh in the Australian Open on Wednesday, but was left frustrated by an Italian reporter bent on reminding her on her loss to Roberta Vinci in 2015.

– “Opaque and secretive” -Separately a senior anti-corruption official told AFP that match-fixing was commonplace in tennis’s lower levels and criticised the “opaque and secretive” Tennis Integrity Unit, which is tasked with finding cheats. “Obviously it’s not an easy match, but I feel that I’ve been playing good and have quite a few matches behind my back already”, Dimitrov said.

Day three’s only major casualty was women’s number six seed Petra Kvitova, who lost 6-4, 6-4 to Russian-born Australian Daria Gavrilova.

“That’s always something that – especially when it’s like in the hand-wrist area – it’s in the back of your mind even though you’re feeling it”.

Maria Sharapova of Russian Federation serves the ball to Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus during the second round match of the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 20 January 2016. “But I’m happy that I got through”.

Two breaks of serve were enough in each set as Konta outpowered her opponent with 26 winners to nine and confirmed a comfortable victory in an hour and 22 minutes.

The fifth-seed’s only stumbles came when she her had her service broken twice in the opening set, including when she held two set points while serving at 5-1.

As both players step on to Rod Laver Arena on Friday night, they will each have a very different perspective.

Seventh-seeded Kei Nishikori, the 2014 U.S. Open finalist, advanced with a 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-3 win over Austin Krajicek and advanced along with No. 6 Tomas Berdych, No. 9 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, No. 12 Marin Cilic, the 2014 U.S. Open champion, No. 14 Gilles Simon, No. 15 David Goffin, No. 19 Dominic Thiem and No. 24 Roberto Bautista Agut. He’ll play Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who beat Daniel Brands 4-6, 6-1, 7-6, 6-3.

“I mean, I had a couple of good (drop-shots), I had a couple of really crappy ones”.