Konta on top at Australian Open

“I’m not going home”.

Novak Djokovic turned up to Melbourne Park in 2012 and won the Australian Open without a single competitive match to start the season.

Djokovic held all four majors simultaneously after winning his first French Open past year.

If she paused to consider a wider sporting context, she could remind her patriotic inquisitors that the Australian cricket team has four players with overseas connections, including Yorkshireman Matt Renshaw, who still has a British passport, as does Peter Handscomb, who was born in Melbourne (and was a fine junior tennis player).

No. 20 Ivo Karlovic followed up his tournament record 84-game first-round win with a straight-set victory over wild-card entry Andrew Whittington, while No. 30 Pablo Carreno Busta went through to an unlikely third-round match against Istomin.

“She is one of the up and coming players and she’s had some really impressive results over the last 12 months or so”, Konta said.

“She plays really well”.

“I’m very happy to have come through that”, Konta said.

“I knew it would be incredibly tough and I wanted to assert myself from the get go and play the match I wanted to play”. It’s a better start than past year.

The last time Johanna Konta faced Naomi Osaka in qualifying for the 2015 U.S. Open, the Briton had just scraped into the top 100 and her then 16-year-old opponent was more than a hundred places further back in the rankings.

The next round will likely be tougher against ninth seed Johanna Konta, who ousted Naomi Osaka of Japan 6-4, 6-2. She was going for the lines. Unforced errors nearly cost Osaka greatly but she managed to utilize her strong serves to hold her serve and prevent herself from falling behind early in the set.

The tension never rose beyond that point.

Istomin made the vital break in the fifth game of the deciding set, then held service the rest of the way in the marathon 4 hour, 48-minute match on Rod Laver Arena.

Konta clinched the match on her third match point during an extended rally between the players that ended with Konta hitting the ball deep to the open court. “I was prepared to lose some points playing that way, but I felt it was the right way”.

She now faces world number 34 Makarova, whom she beat 4-6 6-4 8-6 here past year, with the victor likely to earn a quarter-final showdown with Serena Williams.

Wozniacki certainly thinks so.

However, she’s wary of talking up her title chances so early in the tournament. Obviously Serena is a champion, has won so many Grand Slams.

Match reports, best shots, interviews and incidents – on Eurosport.com you won’t miss a thing from the Australian Open.