For the first time in 39 years, Britain have both a man and a woman in the quarter-finals of a grand slam event after Andy Murray and Johanna Konta won their respective matches at the Australian Open last night.
Two days after his father in law, Nigel Sears, suffered a serious health scare at Melbourne Park, Murray showed hug mental resolve to book his place in the last eight with a 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 win over Australia’s Bernard Tomic.
And Konta continued her surprise run with a 4-6, 6-3, 8-6 win over Russia’s Ekaterina Makaraova to join the Scot in the quarters for the first time in her career.
Second seed Murray is into the last eight for the sixth straight year after beating Tomic for the fourth time in four meetings.
The Australian battled hard but four-time Australian Open runner-up Murray chased down everything and hit 18 aces as he set up a clash with Spain’s David Ferrer.
“I think it was a little bit up and down today,” Murray said. “But I thought I moved well, I thought I served pretty good. I definitely returned well, made him play a lot on his service games.
“I did a lot of things well, but could hit the ball a bit better from the back of the court.”
Konta reached her first grand slam quarter-final with a typically gutsy and impressive victory over Makarova, a semi-finalist in Melbourne last year.
The 24-year-old faltered when serving for the match at 5-4 in the decider but made no mistake second time round to become the first British female quarter-finalist since Jo Durie in 1983.
“That’s really cool,” said Konta, who now plays Chinese qualifier Shuai Zhang. “It’s something I’m proud to have beside my name, but it’s not something I’m thinking about too much right now.”
Murray said he had been following Konta’s exploits over the past 12 months, during which she has lifted her ranking from 150 to a projected mark of 32.
“She's doing great,” he said. I mean, to back up what she was doing at the end of last year was fantastic.
“She's clearly stayed pretty calm, had some excellent wins here against very tough opponents, high-ranked opponents, and experienced ones. She's doing really, really, really well.
“She’s just got to keep doing what she's doing. Keep her head down, keep working hard, stay calm. She’ll have a chance.”
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