Johanna Konta battles to three-set victory over Ajla Tomljanovic at Brisbane International
Tuesday 2 January 2018 16:52, UK
Johanna Konta recovered from losing the first set to defeat Ajla Tomljanovic and advance to the quarter-finals of the Brisbane International.
After a three-set victory over Madison Keys in the British No 1's season opener, Konta was forced to rally from a set deficit for the second match running but prevailed 4-6 6-1 6-4 over Tomljanovic.
Konta, the fifth seed, struggled to dominate behind her first serve and faced 13 break points in five service games during the first set allowing the Croatian-Australian player to break serve four times on her way to securing the first set.
Tomljanovic, the world No 130, was unable to build upon her first set performance as Konta regained her composure to force a deciding set in convincing fashion.
The world No 9 was made to work hard in the closing stages of the encounter before Konta eventually secured victory, on serve, at the second time of asking to set up a last-eight meeting with Elina Svitolina or Ana Konjuh.
"It's a great thing to have two tough matches early on," Konta said.
"It's a boost, the match fitness, and it boosts a lot of the competitive scenarios that we're going to face the whole year. I'm sure my next match will be the same.
"It was a tough match - Ajla came out playing well, especially in that first set, and it took me a little bit of time to find my rhythm.
"She made that very difficult, so that's a credit to her and she played incredibly freely at the end of the third set. There wasn't a lot in it so I'm very happy to have just stayed tough and just come through that."
In other second-round matches, first seed Garbine Muguruza suffered a fitness scare as the two-time Grand Slam champion retired injured against Aleksandra Krunic 5-7 7-6(3) 2-1.
Alize Cornet defeated Mirjana Lucic-Baroni 6-1 7-5 while Anastasija Sevastova enjoyed a comfortable 6-2 6-1 victory over Sorana Cirstea.
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