Johanna Konta sails into Wimbledon second round with straight-sets win

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British No.1 Johanna Konta progressed to the Second Round of Wimbledon and earned revenge over Su-Wei Hsieh with a comfortable straight sets victory, 6-2 6-2, on Court No.1.

Konta’s preparations for her sixth appearance here have been hampered by a spinal injury suffered after a fall at Eastbourne last week. Speaking on Sunday, she was cautious on her fitness, describing the injury as “traumatic” and saying she would take the tournament “one game at a time”.

A First Round draw against the opponent who beat her at the same stage of Roland Garros last month was hardly ideal but Konta showed no signs of injury in a display of powerful but erratic hitting.

The No.7 seed attacked Hsieh – a waif-like Doubles-specialist, whose best-ever result is the victory over Konta – and it worked, but she will have to be less careless and more cute if she is to live up to expectations with a deep run at SW19.

The pair exchanged holds and then breaks in the first four matches, Konta clinching her first service game with a ferocious forehand winner that set the tone for the match, before breaking Hsieh with a confident smash at the net.

Despite the Brit’s clear height and power advantage, nerves or perhaps the injury were leading to errors and she squandered a 40-0 lead to gift Hsieh another break, ending the point with two sloppy forehands beyond the baseline.

Enough of Konta’s shots were landing, though, and she held before breaking again, to take a commanding 5-2 lead in the first set. Given her strategy of power over precision, it was something of a surprise when she sealed the set with a delightful cross-court drop shot in the following game.

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Hsieh held serve at the start of the second but she was to do so only once again – at 5-1 down, when a nervous game from Konta handed her opponent a stay of execution – as the Briton took control of the second set in impressive fashion.

She continued to mix powerful winners with sloppy errors but showed how much the approaching victory meant at 3-1 with a yell of ‘Come On’ and a fist bump when Hsieh hit a long after an exchange of groundstrokes.

At 4-1 up, Konta picked the perfect moment to serve her first ace of the match, leaving her one match from victory but she squandered two match points – nerves, perhaps, a factor again – allowing Hsiesh to recover to take the game to deuce and hold with a forehand winner.

Konta, though, was not about to let the match slip after she wrapped up a 65-minute victory in the next game to breeze into the second round. Questions remain about Konta – notably her fitness and quality on grass – but this result will go along way towards settling her nerves, and banishing those demons from Roland Garros.

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