Daria Saville’s WTA return on home soil continues to gather steam ahead of the Australian Open after she outlasted everything Anna Blinkova could throw at her at the Hobart International on Monday night.
Saville, who was handed a wildcard into the tournament on Saturday, fought back from a set down against last year’s semi-finalist to emerge with a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory in two hours and 16 minutes in cold and windy conditions.
It was arguably the 29-year-old’s best result on tour since returning from a knee reconstruction in June last year, and just the second time she has defeated a top 50 ranked player in her latest comeback.
“I’m really happy, it’s my first top 50 win in a while, I have come close so really nice after all of my injuries and so nice to be back playing at home,” Saville said.
“The conditions weren’t easy today, it was a bit cold and it was always to going to be a challenge for me and I am really proud of myself to not just overcome my opponent but overcome the conditions a little bit.”
After struggling with the wind in the first set, Saville switched racquets and a different string tension started to pay dividends as she worked her way into the clash.
Despite dropping serve to fall behind 2-3 in the second set, she immediately levelled the contest and produced a strong service game to grab the ascendency and in the 10th game Blinkova finally cracked, with Saville producing a cross-court forehand winner to close out the set.
The home crowd favourite then skipped clear 3-0 in the decider and moved to within touching distance of victory at 5-2 before Blinkova rallied one last time to set up a grandstand finish.
Saville failed to convert one match point on her own racquet in the ninth game, with her opponent breaking to get back on serve.
However the Aussie regrouped and broke Blinkova to love to close out the match, helped by consecutive double faults at 0-30 and match point.
“I didn’t start very well, I kind of let her dictate too much and I think I was fighting a little bit, I didn’t know how to play with the wind, I was hitting everything short,” Saville said.
“I ended up changing my racquets a few times and when I finally found the right tension it really helped.”
Saville has now set up a potential second round showdown with former Hobart champion and 2020 Australian Open winner Sofia Kenin, who is first up on centre court on Tuesday against Greet Minnen.
In the second match of the night session, third seed Lin Zhu and Lucia Bronzetti were locked in a tight battle midway through the first set.
Earlier on centre court in the opening round of the doubles, Australians Kimberly Birrell and Olivia Gadecki gave the crowd something to cheer about with a come from behind win over Oksana Kalashnikova and Maia Lumsden.
The Aussie duo dropped the first set in a tiebreaker 6-7(2) but recovered to take the second 6-1 before advancing through the super tie-breaker 10-8.
The second all Australian combination of Elysia Bolton and Alexandra Bozovic went down to Hanyu Guo and Xinyu Jiang 6-2, 6-2 while Japanese third seeds Eri Hozumi and Makoto Ninomiya were too strong for Yanina Wickmayer and Minnen.
Tuesday’s order of play has been released and can be found here, with all the remaining round one matches to unfold in a jam packed day of action.
Adult tickets start from $25^ and kids go free* with a paying adult during the entire tournament, including finals.
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Hobart International 2024, proudly supported by the Tasmanian Government through Events Tasmania, will be held at the Domain Tennis Centre from 6-13 January 2024.
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