Konta out but Sharapova wins again in Stuttgart
British number one Johanna Konta is out of the Stuttgart Open after a second-round defeat by Anastasija Sevastova.
Konta, 25, broke in the opening game but failed to hold her own serve until her fourth attempt and was beaten 6-3 7-5 by the Latvian world number 26.
Konta broke to go 3-1 up in the second set but lost that advantage in the next game and was broken again at 5-5, as Sevastova clinched victory.
Meanwhile, Maria Sharapova beat Ekaterina Makarova in straight sets.
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Sharapova’s successful return continues
Sharapova made it two wins out of two following her return from a 15-month doping ban by defeating fellow Russian Makarova 7-5 6-1.
The five-time Grand Slam winner dominated Makarova, ranked 43 in the world, wrapping up the victory in just one hour, 20 minutes.
Sharapova was powerful on serve, as she had been in Wednesday’s win over Italy’s Roberta Vinci, but struggled at times with her return.
Once she had claimed the first set with a late break of serve, she powered through the second, breaking twice before wrapping up the match with an ace.
“Practice and playing are so different and you can only prepare the best you can,” Sharapova said.
“The reaction and anticipation you need are so hard to replicate in training and these are the things I need.”
In the last eight, the 30-year-old faces Estonian qualifier Anett Kontaveit, who was a 2-6 7-6 (7-1) 6-1 victor over Spanish fifth seed Garbine Muguruza.
Sharapova maintains mental hold – analysis
BBC tennis correspondent Russell Fuller:
She may not have figured in any draw for 15 months, but it appears Sharapova still has a strong mental hold on so many of her opponents.
Makarova had a glorious chance to hit a backhand winner into open court to break for a 6-5 lead, but missed. She then dropped her serve to concede the set, and only won one more game after that.
It was another strong performance by Sharapova, and she then moved to the media centre to make it clear she no longer wishes to discuss the details of her positive test for meldonium.
She says she has done “numerous interviews in the past few months” – which overlooks the fact that journalists and publications, like the fashion magazine Vogue, have been very carefully selected.
Konta, meanwhile, admits her clay-court game is a work in progress, but thinks she is playing well enough to prove effective on the surface.
She says she needs to improve her movement and her point construction, but was not too downhearted by her start to the clay season. She has won two and lost two, and will next play in Madrid in 10 days time.
Konta denied rematch with Halep
Wednesday’s first-round victory over Naomi Osaka was just Konta’s third WTA Tour win on clay.
She began well on Thursday with a break of Sevastova’s serve in the first game but lost the next three games and did not hold her own serve until the fourth attempt.
Sevastova, ranked 19 places below Konta at 26, produced three successive aces en route to clinching the opening set before recovering from 3-1 down in the second to level.
A missed forehand opportunity then cost Konta as she was broken in the 11th game and Sevastova served out the victory with her sixth ace.
Had Konta won, she would have faced Romania’s Simona Halep in the third round.
Those two were involved in Sunday’s controversial Fed Cup meeting in Constanta, which Halep won 6-1 6-3 after Konta left the court in tears.