Aussie-in-waiting Ajla Tomljanovic will be hoping the task of squaring off against the No.6 seed on Pat Rafter Arena is a good omen when she meets Carla Suarez Navarro on Day 2 of the Brisbane International today.
The Croatian-born Brisbane resident made the perfect start to 2015 on the same court when she downed sixth seeded former No.1 Jelena Jankovic. Against this year’s sixth seed she will need to overcome an 0-2 head-to-head record against the world No.13.
The 22-year-old reached her first WTA Tour final last year in Pattaya City, while Suarez Navarro returns after her best season. She reached a career-high of world No.8 last May and was runner-up three times – at Antwerp, Miami and Rome.
Former world No.8 Grigor Dimitrov has a difficult job at hand if he is to rebound from a disappointing 2015 when he opens against No.5 seed Gilles Simon.
The 24-year-old Bulgarian, now ranked 28th, has never beaten his 31-year-old French opponent in four prior attempts but will draw on impressive runs to the Brisbane final in 2012 and semifinals last year against the world No.15.
Simon reached the Wimbledon quarterfinals in 2015 and won his 12th ATP World Tour final in Marseille on top of a runner-up showing also on home soil in Metz.
Sam Stosur returns to her home event and will take on Slovak qualifier Jana Cepelova in the third match on Pat Rafter Arena.
While the world No.27 will start favourite against her 147th-ranked opponent, she has lost the duo’s only prior meeting on hard courts in Doha two years ago.
The 31-year-old 2011 US Open champion claimed two titles in 2015 – Strasbourg and Bad Gastein.
“This year I would definitely like to improve on that and try and get myself back into the top 20 as soon as possible,” Stosur said yesterday. “The only way to do that is by winning matches and doing that consistently.”
Belarusian former world No.1 Victoria Azarenka will open the Night 2 session when she meets Russian qualifier Elena Vesnina.
The 2009 Brisbane champion and two-time Australian Open winner lost arguably one of the best matches of last season in the opening round on Pat Rafter Arena when she fell to Karolina Pliskova, having held match points.
Now ranked No.22, the 26-year-old will carry a perfect 6-0 record into her match with the 115th ranked Vesnina. She was runner-up in Doha and made quarterfinals at Wimbledon and the US Open.
Australia’s Newcombe Medal winner Sam Groth will be aiming to reach his third straight Brisbane International quarterfinal in 2016 and will open his campaign against Korean Hyeon Chung, winner of the ATP World Tour’s most improved player last season. Groth, the world No.60, also reached quarterfinals in Stuttgart and Washington while his 19-year-old opponent, ranked No.51, reached his first quarterfinal in Shenzhen.
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