Australian Open 2018: Fair-skinned Kyle Edmund battling the weather as hard as his opponents ahead of third round

Edmund is Britain's last hope in Melbourne after Johanna Konta's shock exit

Edmund suffered from sunburn during his first-round match (Getty)

For a pale-skinned Englishman, the thought of playing a best-of-five-sets match in temperatures of 40 degrees or more might be an intimidating prospect, but Kyle Edmund has learned how to cope with such extreme conditions.

The world No 49 will have to deal with the hottest weather of the tournament so far when he takes on Georgia’s Nikoloz Basilashvili, the world No 61, in the third round of the Australian Open here on Friday.

Edmund, who has a Welsh father and South African mother, was born in Johannesburg but moved to Britain when he was three.

“I didn’t grow up in the sun, but I just know that when I’m playing in hot countries, I have fair skin so I get burned very easily so I have to look after my body,” Edmund said. “It’s no joke. If you don’t look after your skin, people get skin cancer.”

Having suffered sunburn during his opening match here against Kevin Anderson on Monday after failing to apply enough sunblock, Edmund was reminded by his mother of the need to protect himself.

The 23-year-old Briton has also suffered cramp in hot weather in the past but has worked hard on his conditioning and believes he is now better equipped to handle such conditions.

“I think it’s something you get wiser about as you get older,” Edmund said. “You know how to manage your body a bit more and how your body works. You have more belief that your body is going to be fine.

“Nerves play a big part in cramping as well. It’s funny how the body works with that. As you get older, you are more experienced. When you are younger, you are in unknown territory and you don’t know how you are going to react or feel. When you do it over and over again, you just take care of it, you get used to it.

“You always get nerves, for sure. That’s just normal. I’ve accepted that. At the end of the day, it’s just a tennis match. You’re not nervous because something different is going to happen. Once you get on court hitting balls, then it’s just sort of auto-pilot. You don’t forget how to hit the ball.”

Edmund suffered in extreme heat here two years ago, when he lost in the first round to Damir Dzumhur in five sets, having won two of the first three.

Edmund needed just 89 minutes to see off Istomin (Getty)

“Physically I was breaking down,” Edmund recalled. “It’s always hot here. You have to accept that, really.

“One year I was here and they stopped matches because it got to 41 to 42 and they have that heat rule. But we were actually practising at that time. It’s not so much tough playing in it. It’s the accumulation of hours which wears you down. It saps the energy out of you.”

He added: “I remember one year we played in the Under-14s or Under-16s European Championships in Moscow and they had a heatwave. It was the hottest it had been in Moscow since records began. I remember that being so hot – in the 40s for sure. I think I made the quarters there or something, won a few matches.”

In his only previous meeting with Basilashvili Edmund beat the Georgian in the first round of the French Open two years ago. Edmund won 7-6, 6-7, 7-5, 6-1 after a gruelling contest that lasted nearly three hours.

“It was two tight sets and then he was a break up in the third, maybe serving for the third,” Edmund recalled. “I broke him twice to win the set and then I think he tapped out in the fourth. That’s how I remember it. The fourth set took only 15 or 20 minutes.

“That was good. Being younger you haven’t got a huge amount of five-set experience. I have more now. When you win those type of matches it gives you confidence, when you outlast people.”