Serena Williams admits she faced Australian Open scare as Boulter sets Gauff tie

Australian summer tennis is back with a flurry, with fans of the sport handed the arduous task of tracking multiple tournaments on the same site in the same week.

With the Australian Open a week away and players desperately trying to get some match play under their belts after their two-week spell of hard or soft quarantine, tournament organisers have laid on a string of events at Melbourne Park to offer playing time to players.

Two WTA events are already underway, with Serena Williams among those involved at the Yarra Valley Classic and Naomi Osaka leading the Gippsland Trophy field, while two ATP events, the Murray River Open and the Great Ocean Road Open, have also started.

The ATP Cup kick starts on February 2, while a third WTA event, the Grampians Trophy – for those players forced into hard quarantine after positive tests on their charter flights, will start on February 3. Good luck keeping up with all of that.

Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam champion, looked in decent shape on her return to competitive action.

She beat Aussie Daria Gavrilova 6-1 6-4 to move into the last-16 of the Yarra Valley Classic, where she will face Tsvetana Pironkova.

Had the original schedule gone to plan, the Australian Open summer would already be over, with the men’s final initially set to take place on Sunday, and Williams revealed that she would not have made it to Melbourne had that timeline materialised.

‘It was great for me because I needed the time, because I couldn’t practise because of my achilles,’ said Williams after her first match of the season.

‘I needed every time – I don’t think I would have been here if it was during the regular season.

‘So whew, that was an unwanted blessing, I would say, but it was much needed for me. So I definitely took that time to recover and to just do the best that I can, and yeah, and so now it’s a lot better.

‘I was able to get a regular block. Honestly, not as much as I would have liked, because I needed to take – achilles are like the worst thing honestly, oh my goodness, I didn’t realise it would be this long.

‘But, yeah, so I definitely was pushing the limits, but I’m here.’

There were mixed results for the British contingent overnight.

Katie Boulter, who is using her protected ranking to compete in the Australian Open after dropping to world No. 371 due to prolonged absence after a back injury suffered on Fed Cup duty in 2019, beat Anna Kalinskaya 6-1 6-3 to advance to round two of the Gippsland Trophy.

Her compatriots Francesca Jones and Cameron Norrie were, however, first-round losers, suffering defeats to Nadia Podoroska and Tommy Paul respectively.

Boulter will go on to face American teenager Coco Gauff, the 14th seed, in round two.

Gauff, 16, battled past Jil Teichmann 6-3 6-7 (6-8) 7-6 (7-5) and quickly turned her attention to the test of the British No. 13.

‘I never played her before, but I know she’s tall and she has a big serve and has some big ground strokes and to be honest I’m just going to take the same mindset that I had today,’ said Gauff.

‘I think I play tomorrow, in tomorrow’s match, and I haven’t really thought about the next round that much, but, yeah, definitely the mindset will be something I’ll take into that.’

The winner will likely face three-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka.

British No. 1 Johanna Konta will kick her season off on Tuesday against a familiar foe, American Bernarda Pera.

Heather Watson, Britain’s No. 2, will take on Veronika Kudermetova in the Grampians Trophy later this week.

Dan Evans, the eighth seed in the Murray River Open, will face Portugal’s Pedro Sousa.

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