Marina Erakovic reached the Australian Open second round for
just the second time in her career with a hard-fought
straight sets win last night.
The Croatian-born 23-year-old downed French qualifier Irena
Pavlovic 7-5 7-6(7-4) on Melbourne Park's court 15 in a match
that took just four minutes shy of two hours.
It was the Auckland-based world No 62's seventh win in a
grand slam event and just her second in Melbourne, having
previously reached the second round in 2009.
On that occasion, she lost to Czech Lucie Safarova in a
marathon three-setter in the second round.
This time, she will meet unseeded American Christina McHale,
who upset 24th seed Safarova 6-2 6-4 on Monday.
Erakovic is NZ's top-ranked player and also the nation's only
singles entrant in Melbourne.
Monday night's win was her first for the year, having lost in
the opening round in tournaments in Auckland and Hobart.
But her lead-in form was better than that bare statistic
suggests.
She pushed Germany's Angelique Kerber to three sets in
Auckland and fell in a tight two-setter to Belgian world
No.26 Yanina Wickmayer in Hobart.
Erakovic said she felt she had actually played better in the
two matches she had lost this year than in Monday's win.
"I just felt really tight. I think I just won because I
hustled a lot; I got a lot of balls back," she said.
"I tried very hard to play my game and go out and hit the
ball.
"But sometimes you're just tight. You hit the ball and the
body's just not letting you play well.
"At the end of the day, I'm happy I did it and I won the
match."
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