24 June 2014 | Tennis Queensland

Seven Australians took the court overnight in the opening round of The Championships at Wimbledon.

In one of Australia’s best starts to the Grass Court tournament, five of the seven were victorious – including some surprise contenders, causing upsets to their unsuspecting counterparts.

After struggling to return to form since hip surgery at the beginning of the year, Bernard Tomic has passed his first hurdle without a hitch in a comfortable 6-4 6-3 6-2 win against Russian Evgeny Donskoy.

Tomic previewed some strong build-up form on grass in the lead-up to the tournament, and last night’s win was more encouragement that the 21-year-old could be in with a chance to mirror his previous Wimbledon performance, reaching the last 16 in 2013.

Fellow Australians Marinko Matosevic, Casey Dellacqua and Jarmila Gajdosova all followed suit with winning starts, as did qualifier Luke Saville, who produced the biggest surprise of the night, upsetting promising Austrian, world No. 57 Dominic Thiem 7-5 6-4 3-6 6-4 in his Wimbledon main draw debut. He has set up a second-round showdown with 11th seed Grigor Dimitrov for Wednesday.

The first round was bittersweet for local fans with Sam Stosur and Sam Groth going down in their first round clashes. Although Stosur showed impressive and controlled skills with 13 aces and 25 winners, her young opponent Belgian Yanina Wickmayer proved focused and powerful, and used early breaks to secure the lead required to finish the match strong in just 69 minutes, 6-3 6-4.

Big serving qualifier Sam Groth went down fighting in a 7-5 7-6 (7-2) 7-6 (7-5) loss to Ukrainian 21st seed Alexandr Dolgopolov.

The remaining Australians Lleyton Hewitt, Nick Kyrgios, Matt Ebden and James Duckworth will begin their campaigns tonight.