AO 2025: Day 3
HER WAY’s wrap of the final day of first round matches live from Melbourne Park.
Day 3 was once again packed with action right across Melbourne Park as the final first round matches were completed. Another huge day session attendance of 56,322 rolled up, and those who made their way into Rod Laver Arena saw an epic opening match to the day. 8th seed Emma Navarro played the longest match of her WTA career, finally prevailing over fellow American Peyton Stearns 6-7 7-6 7-5 in an encounter which lasted 3 hours 20 minutes.
It was an easier task for some of the other top seeds, with Wimbledon runner up Jasmine Paolini, 9th seed Daria Kasatkina, 19th seed Madison Keys and former US open champ Emma Radacanu all progressing in straight sets. Unfortunately for the local hopes, Junior Aussie star Emerson Jones came up against a rampant 6th seed Elena Rybakina, with the 2023 Australian Open finalist taking care of the rookie Australian in under an hour 6-1 6-1.
HER WAY walked into Kia Arena ready to see Australian hope Kim Birrell up against 13th seed Anna Kalinskaya. However just minutes before the players were due to walk out, the big screen listed Birrell’s opponent as Germany’s Eva Lys, leading to confusion.
Lys had been knocked out in the final round of qualifying for the tournament’s main draw, but had remained in Melbourne for a few more days, training and staying onsite in the event a player withdrew, and that’s exactly what happened.
Just minutes before the match, Kalinskaya advised she wouldn’t be competing (for reasons that haven’t been made known at time of posting) and Lys, who was booked on a flight to leave Australia tomorrow, was suddenly playing on the fourth biggest court of the grand slam.
The start from both players was chalk and cheese. Lys came out swinging, constantly pumping herself up between points with fist pumps and words of encouragement to herself. She attacked the lines with her ground shots, reeling off winners. Meanwhile the Aussie was tentative, committing double faults and unforced errors at critical times, and was unable to hold serve for the entire first set. Birrell managed to break Lys’ serve twice as the pro-Australian crowd, plus a very vocal coach Nicole Pratt, tried to get her going. But it was the German who took the first set 6-2.
Unfortunately for Birrell, the second set was essentially a repeat of the first. Lys ran out to a 3-0 lead until the Aussie finally held her own serve for the first time in the match. Kim had a few bright moments, and a couple of her excellent shots drew applause even from her opponent. But with five times the amount of winners, the German ‘lucky loser’ seemed free to go for her shots, and landed them with regularity, as she closed out the match 6-2 6-2 in 70 minutes.
Post-match, Birrell admitted to being ‘rattled’ by the late change of opponent after having prepared a strategy to play Kalinskaya, but take nothing away from Lys, who simply took her opportunity, served better (73% 1st serve win compared to 37%), and executed her shots better.
The German acknowledged the late change would’ve been tough for Kim, but also explained what life had been like the past three days for her as a lucky loser, hoping she may or may not get a call up:
“You have to start the day at 10am and sign in, and you have to stick around until the last match of the day because you never know what’s going to happen.”
Away from the on-court action, HER WAY was given a rare glimpse underneath Margaret Court Arena today at the Stringers Room, where a group of experts spend each day of the Open re-stringing racquets for all of the players. Stay tuned over the coming days to see how it all happens.