Murray beats Groth to reach third round in Australian Open

Milos Raonic looked in impressive form as he came through against Tommy Robredo without dropping a set, while Fernando Verdasco failed to build on his earlier win over Rafael Nadal as he was dumped out by Dudi Sela. Groth, who boasts the fastest serve in tennis, let it be known just as they were preparing to enter the center court at Melbourne Park that he’d never played on the biggest stage at the season’s first major.

On Wednesday, Federer extended his streak of reaching the third round at the Australian Open to 17 years.

The change in atmosphere did not, however, faze the British number one, who hit 26 winners to Zheng’s nine and confirmed a comfortable victory in an hour and 22 minutes. But he’s the sort of player that, if your level’s not quite there, he’ll make it very tough for you, as he did at the French. He understands the game well and he gets the most out of his game.

Only once before has Konta been past the second round of a major tournament, when she reached round four at the US Open a year ago, and she will face Czech Denisa Allertova, who defeated either Sabine Lisicki, the German 30th seed.

The Portuguese is managed by the same football agent who looks after avid tennis fan Jose Mourinho. The Portuguese won the opening two sets, but dropped the third, before rebounding well to win the fourth with a loss of just one game.

He said: “For anyone who is innocent, whose name gets talked about with that stuff, then you for sure feel sorry for them if they have done nothing wrong”. ‘Zverev in the first round has a huge serve and a fantastic backhand, while Sousa doesn’t serve as well but moves terrifically well and uses his forehand more. So my preparation will have to be different’.

Azarenka is back to full fitness after a frustrating 2015 campaign, during which she failed to progress beyond the quarter-finals at any grand slam.

Against Murray his first ace did not arrive until the second game of the second set, by which time he was already reeling from a slow start punished by the 28-year-old Scot.

“Where I am in my life is very different and I’m so very happy to be here and want to enjoy it as long as I can”, Azarenka said. “I think whoever kind of gets to strike first is going to be the one who comes out on top”. “I was really shaking, because the sound of the lady falling was really loud”, she said. But she is better as well probably.

The 10th-seeded Isner had 20 aces and 53 winners in the match, and also won 33 of his 44 approaches to net.

While there is a growing awareness of her around the wider game she played it down.

Having to face Djokovic in another final this would be problematic for Murray since he has lost 10 of their last 11 meetings.

Across on Margaret Court Arena, Frenchmen Gael Monfils and Nicholas Mahut went toe-to-toe with the explosive Monfils packing too much power for his fellow countryman to win 7-5, 6-4, 6-1.

‘It was a bit of an elephant in the room but we were laughing about it a bit.

It was the second time in the first four days of the tournament that play had been delayed while a spectator underwent medical treatment after Bernard Tomic’s match against Denis Istomin was similarly disrupted on Tuesday. Fortunately for me I won’.