Konta ousts Zvonareva while Djokovic's fitness level continues to improve

Two weeks after teetering on breathless collapse in her Tour comeback, Johanna Konta played with near-unbreakable focus in searing New York heat on Tuesday to break down the Russian veteran Vera Zvonareva and move to within two wins of reaching her first Cincinnati Open final.

But Andy Murray’s return to action suffered a blow with a straight-sets 6-2, 6-2 defeat to Milos Raonic in the weather-affected third round of the men’s competition, while the ATP world No 1, Novak Djokovic, moved through after beating the heavy, late-evening rain and the eccentric American Tennys Sandgren 6-2, 6-4.

Djokovic next plays Jan-Lennard Struff in the German’s first Masters quarter-final. Djokovic, who pulled out of the doubles before the first round with a minor injury, said: “I’m as close to a painless neck as I can be, maybe five to 10 per cent more.”

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Konta, meanwhile, is sanguine about her recent health problems. She hit freely and with confidence to win 6-4, 6-2 against Zvonareva, a former world No 2 who 10 years ago played in consecutive finals at Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows. The British No 1 is playing well enough to match her run to the US Open quarter-finals last summer. That slam starts on Monday, two days after the final of this intriguing warm-up tournament on the same Flushing Meadows site.

Earlier in the week, she said light-headedness and the recurrence of a heart flutter at the Top Seed tournament in Lexington, Kentucky, this month echoed recent, similar concerns, although she felt “fit as a fiddle”. After outclassing the 34-year-old Belgian Kirsten Flipkens in just over an hour on Monday, she said she would seek further medical opinion when she returns to the UK next month.

Generally upbeat on day three, she bristled at the observation in TV commentary by the former British No 1, Laura Robson, that Thomas Hogstedt, her fifth full-time coach in six years, was “a weird choice”, because of their independent natures. Certainly their three-week-old partnership has shown promise. Konta has not faced a break point in two matches over two hours and 24 minutes.

“Laura doesn’t know me very well, and I don’t know her very well,” she said. “I think she is basing that on what she knows about me and has seen around, which is fair enough. I don’t know how well she knows Thomas [he was interested in coaching Robson near her peak seven years ago]. I have a lot of respect for him, and he has had a lot of success with a lot of players. That will be for a reason, but it doesn’t always guarantee certain people match up well. I don’t see why it cannot work. I am leaving space for both of us to be ourselves and make sure it works for both of us.”

If there had been a crowd, sentiment on Grandstand on day four might have been with the 35-year-old Russian - a mother for the first time two years ago, who won this tournament at its Mason, Ohio, home in 2006 and last played in it there in 2011, when she pushed Maria Sharapova hard in the semi-finals. Sharapova retired at 32 in February, but her compatriot, now parked at 270 in the WTA rankings, forges on, through the suspicion of recurring injury and the pandemic.

But age and Konta’s serve told. The No 8 seed knew Zvonareva, the winner of 76 matches against top-20 opponents over two decades, played at a higher level than Flipkens, and lifted her own game. After double-faulting on match point, slipping to deuce, she took her third chance with a wide serve on the ad side and a forehand into the other corner.

Murray, who beat Frances Tiafoe and Alexander Zverev in his first competitive matches for nine months, took on Raonic having beaten him in their past eight meetings, including in the 2016 Wimbledon final. But the 29-year-old Canadian gained revenge in a rain-interrupted match in New York, winning in an hour and 28 minutes.