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."
