Valentova digs deep to win Australian Open girls' opener

At just 15-years-old, Tereza Valentova is already No. 2 seed at this year’s Australian Open Junior Championships.

There were four matches before her outing on court 14 today and restlessness at the wait was compounded when her opponent, the American Ariana Anazagasty-Pursoo, showed up a good 10 minutes late.

Fired up maybe, the two youngsters (Anazagasty-Pursoo is 16) spent the next two hours and eight minutes trading blows from the back of the court. It was heavyweight, thumping stuff, both players finding it hard to hold serve at times but the match was always very even, no player really getting and retaining a lead.

Noise flooded the court early on from an adjacent mixed doubles match but there were just 40 spectators left when the match finally ended just before 8pm. The court, which had been bathed in sunshine at the outset was shrouded in shade and drafts of wind at the end.

Either player could have won. Anazagasty-Pursoo, a New Yorker who has been playing tennis since she was three-years-old, is a fighter and one to watch. There was almost nothing to separate the players who retained their focus and game faces throughout.

Valentova was understandably upbeat afterwards. She missed last week’s tournament in Traralgon with a sore back but looked to be moving uninhibited.

"Australia is my favourite place to visit, it’s a very good place. I have been thinking about the match I lost here last year for a whole year,” she said.

The third match point for Valentova - she finally won 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 - proved decisive.

“On the last point I hit the ball short but the wind took it long and it landed on the line and I won,” she afterwards with some relief.

In an even longer outing at two hours and 27 minutes and an equally late finish, Australia’s Emerson Jones knocked out Brazilian wild card Carolina Xavier Laydner.

The shock of the day came at 4.25pm on court 12 when the No. 3 seed, Britain’s Ella McDonald, tumbled out of the tournament. Despite a flurry of aces before a very healthy crowd, the unforced error count for McDonald was much higher than that of her opponent, Alevtina Ibragimova, who came home easily 6-1 6-2 in little over an hour.

Earlier, on the same court, the eighth seed Nina Vargova from Slovakia was pushed to an unexpected three sets against another Russian, Kristiana Sidorova.

The girls' favourite to win the tournament, Japan’s Sara Saito, plays her first round match against Australia’s Stefani Webb on Sunday.

Click here for the day one news from the boys' event