Murray eyes improvement after second-round win

Do we think Ana Ivanovic has what it takes to win the Australian Open 2016? “I always gave 100 per cent”, Hewitt bows out after 20 successive Australian Open appearances. The second round match between Ana Ivanovic of Serbia and L…

(AP Photo/Aaron Favila). Garbine Muguruza of Spain celebrates after defeating Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium in their second round match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016.

After his 6-0, 6-4, 6-1 second-round win over Sam Groth on Thursday extended his unbeaten streak against Australians to 17, Murray took time to pay tribute to Hewitt, who was scheduled to play the next match on Rod Laver Arena.

Murray had previously said he would pull out of the tournament and return to Britain to be with his wife should she go into labour with their first child, due in mid-February.

“This is maybe the third time I played him here”.

On a day when the humidity and early rain slowed down the conditions the No 2 seed was imperious in defusing the power of Australian bruiser Sam Groth 6-0, 6-4, 6-1, taking just an hour-and-a-half to do so on the Rod Laver Arena.

“But when he picked his serve up in the second set, it became much tougher”.

“I think for anyone who is innocent, whose name gets talked about with that stuff, then you feel sorry for them if they have done nothing wrong”, Murray told national newspapers.

Other big servers had more success than Groth.

Murray drilled down with two more service breaks in the third set to wrap up a convincing win, with Groth finishing in pain from an apparent twisted right ankle as he made a net approach in the final game.

No. 18 Feliciano Lopez, No. 21 Viktor Troicki, No. 23 Monfils, and No. 31 Steve Johnson also advanced.

In the build-up to the match, however, Djokovic was forced to answer questions relating to claims made by Italian newspaper Tuttosport on Wednesday that he had “wanted” to lose against France’s Fabrice Santoro at the Paris Masters nine years ago.

Apart from Andrew Agassi, Hewitt said, “there wasn’t a lot of guys that would stay back and play from the back of the court”.

“I felt like this was the flawless place to finish”, he said. “It was actually good that we had to wait a little bit because I was really shaking, because I could imagine and it was not so nice”, he said. “I don’t know. I guess we have to ask them”.

“The patron was stretchered to the first aid post for observation and further treatment”, the officials said, without commenting on her condition.

Behind 20 aces, Isner beat Marcel Granollers 6-3, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (2).

Ivanovic, a finalist at Melbourne Park in 2008, will face American Madison Keys or Kazakh Yaroslava Shvedova in the third round. It was just that physically I was nowhere near strong enough at that age.

Two-time champion Victoria Azarenka was the most impressive of the women’s winners when she hammered Danka Kovinic 6-1, 6-2 to reach the third round for the loss of just three games in total.

No. 11 Timea Bacsinszky, No. 19 Jelena Jankovic and No. 30 Sabine Lisicki were other seeded players to go out.

Johanna Konta followed up her first-round win over Venus WIlliams with a 6-2, 6-3 win against Zheng Saisai, and Zhang Shuai beat Alize Cornet 6-3, 6-3 two days after her opening upset against Halep.