Johanna Konta suffers 'blueberry debacle' before easing through at Australian Open
"I went to the supermarket to buy blueberries. I only bought blueberries, two punnets. I left two punnets of blueberries there. It's five dollars I won't get back"
Tuesday 16 January 2018 12:38, UK
Johanna Konta eased into the second round of the Australian Open - but is still lamenting her forgotten blueberries.
The ninth seed has a fine record at Melbourne Park having reached the semi-finals and quarter-finals the last two years and is one of a whole raft of contenders for the women's title.
She was far too good for 90th-ranked American Madison Brengle, hitting 37 winners and eight aces in a 6-3 6-1 victory that lasted only an hour and six minutes.
Konta, though, is still haunted by her shopping failure, when she went out to buy blueberries only to leave them behind.
"Oh, my goodness, I don't want to talk about it," she said. "Honestly. I messaged everybody. Literally everybody on my team. Has this happened to anyone else?
"I went to the supermarket to buy blueberries. I only bought blueberries, two punnets. I left two punnets of blueberries there. It's five dollars I won't get back. It's actually more the betrayal in my own mind I feel so upset about. I was so sad.
"Clearly I'm not over the blueberry debacle. No, I'm happy to come through today and I'm just looking forward to playing again on Thursday. I now need to go again to buy blueberries."
Fortunately, Konta was a lot more focused on Hisense Arena and set about overpowering Brengle, the last player to beat Serena Williams in Auckland last January, whose serve in particular took a battering as the British No 1 set up a second-round clash with another American, 123rd-ranked lucky loser Bernarda Pera.
"I was actually really enjoying being out there," said Konta.
"It was a nice day. It was sunny. It was quite a full stadium. I kind of tried to absorb the atmosphere a little bit.
"I was really excited to play. I was really looking forward to playing her. She brings different sorts of difficulties. I thought it was a great first round for me to fight through and battle through and stay strong in the way I wanted to play out there. And I feel I did that."
Konta will be strongly fancied to beat Pera next up, and the biggest obstacle could be the weather, with a forecast heat wave set to send temperatures soaring into the high 30s.
Konta, though, who spent her formative years in Australia, is confident she will not let conditions affect her.
She said: "I think I take it in my stride. I know it's a part of it. Everyone who comes here know that it's going to happen at one point or another.
