After yesterday's play was rain-affected, the matches ramped up on Day 2 of Australian Open qualifying.
For Aussie fans, that meant it was hard to know where to look, with 19 locals on the schedule to choose from.
With so many matches to take in, there was l bound to be a mixed bag, and that was certainly the case. Elation, heartbreak, excitement and disappointment reverberated around the grounds of Melbourne Park.
Aussie women
On the women’s side, Australia came out on the positive side of the ledger, with six wins and three losses.
Maddison Inglis notched up the first win of the day, defeating Elsa Jacquenot of France 6-3 6-2, highlighted by an astonishing 34 winners.
She will take on Sara Sorribes-Tormo, who delivered a heart-breaking loss to Jaimee Fourlis, 6-7 7-5 4-6, in a match that lasted a staggering three hours and 43 minutes.
While Fourlis wasn’t afraid to take the match to her higher-ranked opponent, mixing her 62 winners with 65 unforced errors, it was the ‘break points converted’ stat proving the difference.
Fourlis converted just six of 22 opportunities, while Sorribes-Tormo took full advantage, breaking six times from her 10 chances.
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Priscilla Hon found herself in a battle against World No.406 Usue Maitane Arconada of the United States.
After nearly three hours, Hon found a way to win 6-3 6-7 6-4, breaking her opponent in the final game of the match with a forehand winner, bringing the house down on Court 6, which certainly lived up to the ‘party court’ moniker.
Her next opponent will guarantee an Aussie into the third-round, as she will take on Kimberly Birrell, who is coming off one of the best weeks of her career in Brisbane.
Birrell defeated 18-year-old Sara Saito, of Japan. Whilst understandably a little slow to get going, Birrell did eventually take charge and had too much class, winning 7-6 6-2.
One of the biggest surprises might have been 20-year-old Elena Micic, currently ranked No.422, defeating her more fancied opponent, Elena Pridankina.
In her first Grand Slam match, Micic dug deep, to win 6-3 3-6 7-5, breaking her opponent in the final game to seal victory.
Astra Sharma and Arina Rodionova also made their way through the first hurdle towards main draw qualification, taking care of their opponents, Mai Hontama and Aliona Falei respectively.
Unfortunately, Petra Hule had a tough assignment, taking on former top-20 player, Petra Martić, and despite a slow start by dropping the first set 2-6, Hule fought bravely in the second set, but with 33 unforced errors, she couldn’t quite get across the line, going down 6-7.
Also bowing out was 17-year-old Alana Subasic. Ranked 1079, Subasic couldn’t win enough points on her first serve to stay in the match against Veronika Erjavec, going down 6-2 6-3.
Aussie Men
For the men, things were slightly more disappointing, with only two winners, in what was a frustrating, but not overly surprising set of results.
The first player to taste success was Dane Sweeny, as the 23-year-old took advantage of his wildcard, defeating his higher-ranked, and more experienced opponent, Pierre-Hugues Herbert 7-6 6-2.
He moves into the second round where Portugal’s Jaime Faria, the No.17 seed, awaits.
Fellow wildcard recipient Blake Ellis also justified his selection, routing France’s Antoine Escoffier 6-2 6-1 with a near-flawless performance.
In what was his first-ever win at a Grand Slam, Ellis was far too good, hitting 20 winners compared to just 11 unforced errors.
Cruz Hewitt drew plenty of interest from spectators as they packed into Court 3 to see the son of a gun in his debut Australian Open.
Hewitt wouldn’t have lost any admirers in his 1-6 4-6 loss to Nikoloz Basilashvili, who has been as high as No.16 in the world, and only three years ago, reached the final of the Indian Wells Masters 1000.
The 16-year-old battled hard, but just didn’t have the weapons to put the heat on Basilashvili. His time will come though.
Bernard Tomic went down to 21st seed Jozef Kovalík of Slovakia.
The former Wimbledon quarter-finalist was never really in the match, punctuated by his inability to earn a sole break point, leaving Melbourne Park with a 3- 6 1-6 scoreline in his first Grand Slam appearance in three years.
Out on a packed court 7, just 24 hours after the Jones family celebrated Emerson’s win at the Adelaide International, her brother, Hayden, went down swinging to Danish World No.200 August Holmgren.
Ranked almost 800 places below Holmgren, Jones looked right at home on the big stage, but ultimately fell short, 6-7(8) 6-4 6-7(8), in a three-hour marathon.
Other players to fall short were Jason Kubler and Matthew Dellavedova, who took it right up to their opponents.
Kubler lost out to Brazilian sixth-seed Thiago Monteiro in a pair of tie-break sets, while it started off all smiles for Dellevedova, as he took the first set 6-3 against Terence Atmane of France.
However, from there, Atmane wrestled back control of the match, taking the next two sets 6 3 6-3.
Other Australians to fall in the first round today included Marc Polmans, Pavle Marinkov, and Edward Winter.
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