National Academy athlete Kaitlin Staines’ winning return to the court has continued with a hard-fought three-set match at the Apis Canberra International today.
Staines, who took the past four months off tennis to concentrate on her HSC, beat Genevieve Lorbergs (SA) 7-6(2) 3-6 6-2 in just over two hours.
The 17-year-old said she was happy with where her big-hitting game is right now.
“I think it’s definitely better than I was expecting,” she said. “I probably had pretty low expectations going out there but that is probably what’s helped, being more relaxed out there.”
“It was definitely hard with the wind and even the sun at one end today, so it was pretty scrappy tennis but I was happy to push through on those more important points.”
She will now face rising 19-year-old Ramu Ueda (JPN), for a place in the main draw. Ueda was a 6-0 6-3 winner over local National Academy player Lisa Mays.
“I’ve never played her but I watched her a little bit today, she’s a great player,” Staines said. “It’s going to be a massive grind and it’s going to be really hard to get through.”
Later, Staines and Mays lost to top seeds Sara Tomic (QLD) and Alana Parnaby (VIC) 5-7 6-4 (8-10) in a thrilling doubles qualifying match lasting 1hr 37min. The pair were leading 8-5 in the super-tiebreak before losing the next five points.
“It’s just that one point that sort of changed the game, but I think we did really well against a pair like that to get really close,” Staines said.
In main draw men’s action, 2015 Canberra International finalist Luke Saville (SA) upset fourth seed Mitchell Krueger (USA), while Sebastian Fanselow (GER) beat sixth seed Noah Rubin (USA). Second seed Taro Daniel (JPN) and eighth seed Omar Jaskia (VIC) also progressed to the second round recording straight set wins.
In the men’s doubles first round, Canberra’s James Frawley and Jacob Grills (VIC) lost to Brydan Klein (GBR) and Dane Propoggia (NSW) 5-7 4-6.
The final round of women’s qualifying will be played on Tuesday, with main draw women’s matches also commencing. The first round of men’s main draw will also continue on Tuesday featuring top seed Jordan Thompson (NSW) and Matthew Ebden (WA).
The Apis Canberra International 2017 is on at the Canberra Tennis Centre until November 5 2017. Entry is free with a gold coin donation requested on finals weekend
The full order of play and qualifying draw can be found here
Live streaming for the women can be found here. Live scoring for the women’s event can be found here.
Live streaming and live scoring for the men’s event can be found here
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