Harriet Dart stops run of British exits after Johanna Konta and Kyle Edmund crash out of Australian Open in first round
As the fortunes of the British contingent took a sharp downward turn on Tuesday, Dan Evans’s first-day victory at the Australian Open was left looking like a false dawn as just Harriet Dart made it through to the second round.
Johanna Konta and Kyle Edmund have both reached the semi-final of the Australian Open in previous years, but on Tuesday they failed to win a set between them as they were bundled out in the first round.
Qualifier Dart came through a a dramatic tussle with Misaki Doi 2-6 6-4 7-6 (6) to record her first victory at Melbourne Park but the chances of British interest in the tournament’s second week now look remote after Konta, the British no. one, suffered her worst grand-slam result since the summer of 2018.
Coming into the Australian Open, chronic knee problems had restricted her playing schedule to just a single match in the previous four-and-a-half months, which surely played a role in her limp first-round exit at the hands of Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur.
Konta’s serve – usually a reliable weapon – was particularly flaky in the face of Jabeur’s aggressive strokeplay. This left her little opportunity to dominate the rallies, and she hit only eight winners to Jabeur’s 19.
Yet Konta – who was the 12th seed here – was upbeat in her post-match press conference. Despite having lost two out of two matches during this Australian trip (the first was at the Brisbane International against Barbora Strycova), she felt that her knee was responding well to treatment.
“What was good today was my knee felt quite good,” said Konta after her 6-4, 6-2 defeat. “And it was actually even better than Brisbane. That's a very positive thing for me, especially for where I was in September.”
The match lasted only 63 minutes, as world No 78 Jabeur – who also beat Konta at Eastbourne last summer – took control. Jabeur is a gifted shotmaker who can surprise you with pace or subtlety, and it is often hard to know which is coming next.
Players who mix their game unpredictably tend to be Konta’s least-favourite opponents, and this was the case again on Tuesday. But one upside is that she won’t lose too many rankings points. She only won a single match here in Melbourne last year before being ousted by Garbine Muguruza in a 3.16am finish.
A little later in the afternoon, Edmund was outplayed by in-form Dusan Lajovic, who has arrived in Melbourne fresh from Serbia’s victory in the ATP Cup.
Edmund had started the day with a 5-2 first-set lead, which he carried over from Monday’s rain-interrupted afternoon session.
Disappointingly, though, he allowed Lajovic to break back at the first opportunity. And then, when the first set went to a tie-break, he was a little unlucky when a Lajovic backhand clipped the net-cord at a crucial moment and flew over his racket for a winner.
Unlucky or not, Edmund’s statistics show that if you get on top of him in a five-set match, he doesn’t come back. This 7-6, 6-3, 7-6 defeat represented the 14th time he had gone two sets down. In all 14, he went on to lose the third set as well.
Katie Boulter made a promising return to grand slam tennis but was beaten 6-4 7-5 by fifth seed Elina Svitolina.
Boulter had not played at a slam since reaching the second round here 12 months ago after suffering a back injury at the Fed Cup in April that ruled her out for six months. It was a very tough draw, and Boulter struck the ball well, racking up 27 winners to Svitolina's 17, but ultimately the Ukrainian was the more composed on the big points.
Cameron Norrie became the fourth British player to exit the tournament, going down 7-5 3-6 3-6 7-5 6-4 to France's Pierre-Hugues Herbert.
Norrie, who also lost in the first round on his debut last year, looked in the ascendancy at two sets to one up and with Herbert feeling his right thigh.
But he played a poor game to drop serve at 5-5 in the fourth set and it was Herbert who claimed the win after three hours and 42 minutes.
