Australian Open: Andy Murray books place in last-32 with win over Sam Groth

Murray won 6-0, 6-4, 6-1

(Getty Images)

Andy Murray and Johanna Konta, Britain’s only representatives in the second round of the singles here at the Australian Open, both booked their places in the last 32 with emphatic victories here today. Murray beat Australia’s Sam Groth 6-0, 6-4, 6-1 with a master class of counter-attacking play, while Konta was a model of consistency in her 6-2, 6-3 victory over China’s Saisai Zheng.

Groth holds the record for the world’s fastest serve, having hit a 163.4mph thunderbolt in South Korea four years ago, and thumps big ground strokes too, but in Murray he was facing a player who relishes taking on attacking opponents who try to dominate at the net.

Murray, who will play Portugal’s Joao Sousa in the third round, won the first nine games, leaving some observers wondering whether he might better his best victory at a Grand Slam tournament, when he beat Spain’s Alberto Martin for the loss of only one game here nine years ago. Groth recovered some pride with his mini recovery in the second set, but Murray quickly resumed control.

Groth, who is 6ft 4in tall and weighs 15st 8lb, loves to take charge at the net and regularly plays serve-and-volley. Murray, however, excels when he has a target. The world No 2 bamboozled his opponent with passing shots, clever angles and killer lobs.

The game at the end of the first set, with Groth serving, was typical. Murray had won two points with lobs and at deuce Groth clearly expected the same treatment after charging into the net, but the Scot beat him with a passing shot. On set point Groth again rushed forward behind his serve only to be beaten by a thumping forehand return.

Groth’s frustration was evident as Murray went 3-0 up in the second set, but the crowd in Rod Laver Arena reserved one of their biggest cheers for when Groth finally won a game at the tenth attempt. The Australian briefly enjoyed his best spell of the match as he broke Murray in the seventh game, but order was quickly restored as the Scot broke for the fifth time in the match to take the second set.

Murray wasted little time completing his victory. Groth appeared to hurt his ankle on the first point of the final game when he was wrong-footed by a superb backhand pass and Murray closed out victory with two successive aces.

“A lot of the guys play a quite similar game nowadays and Sam’s obviously quite different – coming to the net a lot and trying to get forward at every opportunity,” Murray said afterwards.

“But obviously when he serves well, it’s easy to get impatient. You don’t touch the ball sometimes for a whole game. He started off the match not serving so well, which helped me. When he picked his serve up in the second set, it became much tougher.”

Konta had played on Rod Laver Arena when she beat Venus Williams on Tuesday, but her second-round match was staged on Court Eight, which is a far cry from the tournament’s main show court.

Nevertheless there was still a good atmosphere. Most of the crowd here are well aware of Konta’s Australian roots – she was born in Sydney and spent the first 13 years of her life Down Under – and the world No 47 is a popular figure.

Zheng made Konta work hard for her points, but the 21-year-old Chinese is ranked 36 places lower than the Briton and the gap in class was sometimes evident. Konta struck her ground strokes with consistent accuracy, covered the court well and on several occasions showed a fine touch when chasing down drop shots.

Konta took control of the match by breaking serve in the fourth game and won the set four games later with another break. The pattern continued in the second set as Konta broke again for a 3-1 lead. By this stage the Briton was in full command and two games later she went 5-1 up, converting break point with a smart volley after a beautifully constructed points.

On the brink of defeat, however, Zheng played her best two games of the match. She broke Konta to love, hitting big forehand winners on the last two points, and then held serve for 5-3.

Konta, who next plays the Czech Republic’s Denisa Allertova, had appeared to tense up when on the verge of victory over Williams and when she made two successive forehand errors to go 15-30 down in the following game here the Briton’s supporters might have started to worry. However, a service winner steadied the nerves, a missed return created match point and a forehand error secured the victory.

“The whole match and the scoreline doesn’t reflect the amount of tough battles we had with those games, the long games we had,” Konta said afterwards. “There was a really good atmosphere out there. I had a lot of great support. It was pretty loud even for a smaller court.”