Just when the Melbourne crowd had concluded that the fourth seed Simona Halep’s shock loss to Shelby Rogers was the untouchable upset on the first day of Australian Open action, up stepped the unheralded Lesia Tsurenko to give the defending champion Angelique Kerber the fright of her life in a tough three-setter at Rod Laver Arena.
The world No1 prevailed 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 in the end but Tsurenko had for an hour belied her own ranking of 51 and raised serious question marks about Kerber’s ability to win back-to-back titles here. Nothing leading into this match suggested anything other than a regulation win for the top seed, but a bright beginning gave way to a minor ordeal for Kerber.
The German’s jet-propelled start was anticipated, but Tsurenko’s fightback was something else. Had the Ukrainian taken full advantage of the number of break points she was offered it actually could have been far worse for Kerber.
The first set went entirely to plan for the top seed, who shuffled a mere 310 metres in the process of working her opponent around the court with something close to total efficiency, as she’d surely planned. In committing only five unforced errors to that point Kerber simply let her lesser-fancied opponent make all the mistakes.
The tide soon turned in remarkable style, though not before Kerber had established a 3-1 lead in the second set and looked set to close out the match. Faced with the prospect of departing the Australian Open at the initial hurdle for the fourth time in as many years, Tsurenko roared back mightily, continuing to rain down backhand winners and breaking twice late in the second set to take it 7-5. Murmurs all round.
Sanity eventually prevailed when Kerber broke back on Tsurenko’s third service game of the decider, and it was with a frustrated sense of resignation the Ukrainian belted a backhand wide to trail an irretrievable 5-2. So she slumped to her chair at the change of ends rubbing her elbow and barely had use for it during what followed: Kerber set up three match points on serve and needed only one.
Embracing her opponent soon after in such a way as to mask her obvious relief, Kerber’s 123-minute win is the end result she was after and she’ll now face her countrywoman Carina Witthoeft in the second round. Still, plenty of likely opponents in the pointy end of the draw will take comfort from a most unconvincing start to her title defence.
