Johanna Konta suffered her earliest Australian Open exit with a first-round loss to Tunisian Ons Jabeur at Melbourne Park.

The British No.1 from Eastbourne was seeded 12th but expectations were tempered by the fact she had only played one match since a quarter-final exit at the US Open in early September.

A knee injury curtailed her season and Konta revealed last month that she might not even make the trip Down Under.

She will be heading home a lot sooner than she would have hoped after going down 6-4 6-2 to world No.78 Jabeur, who has the type of unpredictable game that even a match-tight Konta finds hard to deal with.