Venus Williams ousted from Australian Open

It hasn’t gotten off to a great start. “You have to be proactive I think with things like this and go and speak to the players rather than them reading about it in the newspapers or, you know, listening to it on the TV or the radio”. “Thanks you everybody for supporting me”.

If Williams ever looked unsafe, it was at the conclusion of each set, when she fed off a burst of adrenalin to string together some juddering assaults. I think in week four of the off-season we were doing interval training on court and my tolerance was head height and my mood was about ceiling height.

Williams, who won the last of seven Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon in 2008, had no answer to the precision of her opponent, who although representing Britain, grew up in Australia the daughter of Hungarian parents.

Venus Williams was fined $5,000 for skipping a mandatory press conference after her first-round loss on Tuesday in Melbourne. It was the most first-round losses with no wins for any player in the top 300 in the rankings. Something I was hopefully trying to get back into. “She’s never mentioned anything about not being here, not competing”.

At age 35, Venus Williams entered the Australian Open as the oldest player in the field.

“It’s irrelevant how old she is because she’s such a champion with so much experience and knowledge”, said Konta.

Serena Williams assumes sister Venus will be back at the Australian Open next year as a 37-year-old.

Seventh-seeded Kei Nishikori, the 2014 U.S. Open finalist, advanced to the third round in the men’s draw with a 6-3, 7-6 (5), 6-3 win over Austin Krajicek.

The Sydney-born Brit, 24, reached the fourth round at the last US Open and also beat world No 2 Simona Halep past year.

Any thoughts that Johanna Konta was struggling to recapture her excellent form of last season were dashed in stunning fashion as the Eastbourne player recorded a straight sets victory against Venus Williams at the Australian Open last night.

On paper, the 90th ranked Taiwanese was no match for Williams. She even hit one shot around the post in the match, which she said afterward was the first in her career.

It proved too little and too late, as she was unable to contend with Konta’s crisp strokes. Williams quickly fell behind 5-0 the second set before rallying briefly again by winning 10 consecutive points.

“It’s always great support from Michael”. “He’s a very nice guy outside of the court – on the court he’s very tough”.

Konta, ranked 47th in the world, inflicted what was only Williams’ eighth first-round exit in 61 grand slam appearances.

“I just think that it should be tennis that does a better job of explaining…” Tatjana Maria, Germany, def. Olga Govortsova, Belarus, 6-4, 6-3.

In 2016, she’s 0-2 after also losing in a warmup tournament at Auckland, New Zealand.

No. 2-ranked Murray opened with a 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 win over Alexander Zverev, checked to see there were no urgent calls from home – his wife is expecting their first child next month – and had to answer questions immediately about the reports. “She made very few errors in those two games and was serving incredibly well to hold at 5-1”.

Light rain is falling at Melbourne Park, delaying the start of play on side courts at the Australian Open on Wednesday.