15 January 2014 | Tennis West

There is an age-old saying that good things come in threes.

For Australian tennis fans that is exactly the case on Day 3 of the 2014 Australian Open.

A three-pronged singles attack, along with the most talked about doubles pairing at the tournament will headline the Aussie assault at Melbourne Park today.

Samantha Stosur, Casey Dellacqua and Matthew Ebden will make their second round singles appearances as they look to go deeper at their home Grand Slam tournament.

Pat Rafter will also dust off over a decade of cobwebs when he teams up with Lleyton Hewitt in the first round of men’s doubles action.

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In all, five all-Australian doubles pairings will hit the court today as well as Marinko Matosevic, who teams up with Michal Przysiezny from Poland.

Casey Dellacqua will be the first Australian in singles action when the diminutive left-hander from WA takes on Belgian eighteenth seed Kirsten Flipkens as the third match of the day on Hisense Arena. It will be the first meeting between the pair of 28-year-olds.

The evening session on Rod Laver Arena begins when sixteenth seed Samantha Stosur comes up against Tsvetana Pironkova who won her maiden WTA title at the Apia International in Sydney last week.

Stosur has a 3-0 win record against the 26-year-old Bulgarian and would love nothing more than continuing that unbeaten run at her home Grand Slam tournament.

Following that match, Matthew Ebden will look to produce his best performance at an Australian Open by progressing to the third round. The 26-year-old from WA clashes with Canadian twenty-eight seed Vasek Pospisil. It will be the first occasion that the pair have gone head-to-head and is sure to be a highly entertaining encounter.

Eleven Australians play their first round doubles matches today, none more notable than the aforementioned Rafter/Hewitt combination.

They will take on American Eric Butorac and Russian Raven Klaasen in the last match of the day on Hisense Arena which is scheduled not to start before 5pm. It is sure to be a big hit with Aussie fans as two of the nation’s best players in recent years reunite.

Other Australian doubles pairings in action today are Jelena Dokic with Storm Sanders, Jessica Moore with Azra Hadzic, Sally Peers with Viktorija Rajicic and Olivia Rogowska with Monique Adamczak.