By Dave Worsley
A couple of upsets and a couple of straightforward wins for the big names during the Thursday day session at the Australian Open.
As temperatures rose at Melbourne Park the fortunes of ninth seeded Brit Johanna Konta froze, as did third seed Garbine Muguruza. Both knocked out in the second round.
Konta had been a semifinalist and quarterfinalist in recent years but was bounced out by American Bernarda Pera who prompted a hurried google search by everyone.
The 127th ranked 23-year-old who was a lucky loser surprised everyone including herself with the win and is now in the third round of a Grand Slam.
Muguruza the current Wimbledon champion was put away by Su-Wei Hsieh from Taipei in what was a battle, but only for Muguruza to try and stay in the match.
Watched by former Australian Open tournament director Paul McNamee who has coached Hsieh, the contest proved that the Spaniard was horribly out of form.
However there were relatively easy victories for former champs Maria Sharapova, Angelique Kerber, the sixth seed Karolina Pliskova and eighth seed Carline Garcia.
Men’s winners were predictably fifth seed Dominic Thiem in a five set match, but not 13th seed Sam Querrey who was surprisingly defeated by his Hungarian opponent Marton Fucsovics.
Newshub.
