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.
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.
The chances of British interest in the tournament’s second week now look remote after Konta 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.
Meanwhile, World number one Rafael Nadal cruised into the Australian Open second round with a straightforward victory over Bolivia’s Hugo Dellien in Melbourne.
Nadal, champion in Melbourne in 2009, dropped just five games in a 6-2 6-3 6-0 win over his 72nd-ranked opponent.
The Spaniard, runner-up last year, is bidding to equal Roger Federer’s record of 20 Grand Slam men’s singles titles.
He will play either Federico Delbonis of Argentina or Portugal’s Joao Sousa next.
Nadal has reached the Australian Open final five times but won it only once, beating Federer in a five-set epic 11 years ago.
He dropped serve twice against Dellien but barely looked troubled, hitting 38 winners to his opponent’s 15.
“For me personally it has been a very positive start,” the 33-year-old said.
“What you want is to win in the first round and, if you can do it in straight sets, even better.”
There were also wins on Tuesday for Austrian fifth seed Dominic Thiem, Spain’s ninth seed Roberto Bautista Agut and Argentine 14th seed Diego Schwartzman.
Stan Wawrinka, who won the title in 2014, progressed in four sets, while former finalist Marin Cilic and 2016 semi-finalist Milos Raonic won in straight sets.
