ANDY MURRAY and Garbine Muguruza raced into the Australian Open second round yesterday.

    Seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams suffered an early exit when she lost to British number one Johanna Konta 6-4, 6-2. Meanwhile, Chinese qualifier Wang Qiang scored a sensational opening round win over American Sloane Stephens on Monday .

    Wang knocked out Stephens, an Australian Open semifinalist three years ago, in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 in one of the biggest upsets of the opening day.

    On another sizzling day in Melbourne, sweat-drenched Murray doused the challenge of exciting German prospect Alexander Zverev 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 to get his campaign underway.

    Last year’s runner-up is hoping to become the first man in the Open-era to win a Grand Slam title after losing the final four times, and Zverev, 18, proved no match for the world number two.

    Muguruza wasted little time as she beat Estonian debutante Anett Kontaveit 6-0, 6-4 in one hour exactly — and immediately set her sights on dethroning Serena Williams in the final.

    “To win the Grand Slam here you are going to have to beat Serena (Williams). It will be great if I can play against her,” said the confident Spanish world number three.

    Match-fixing speculation also continued to reverberate on day two as more players revealed approaches after a BBC and BuzzFeed report said corruption was widespread in the sport.

    After world number one Novak Djokovic said he was once offered US$200,000 to throw a match, Australia’s Thanasi Kokkinakis said he had been approached on Facebook.

    The latest developments come after the BBC and BuzzFeed, citing leaked documents, said 16 players who have reached the top 50 had repeatedly fallen under suspicion without facing action. (SD-Agencies)