A see-sawing encounter at Pat Rafter Arena saw Daniela Hantuchova hold her nerve to upset countrywoman and eighth seed Dominika Cibulkova 3-6 6-4 6-3.
In a match where both players seemingly broke the other’s serve at will, Hantuchova finished slightly stronger in a battle of two evenly matched combatants.
“In the first match of the year you always don’t know what to expect,” she said.
“Because of my shoulder injury at the end of the season I couldn’t really practice my serve, so it’s a work in progress.”
However, her serve definitely held strong when she needed it the most.
Looking to close out the match – after she broke the Cibulkova serve for a 5-4 advantage in the eighth game of the final set – Hantuchova bucked the trend of double faults and receiver-dominated tennis to send down consecutive aces on the first two points.
A dramatic climax then saw Hantuchova utilise Hawk-Eye to overule a call on a Cibulkova groundstroke on match point.
“I actually saw the mark but you never know until the last second, so my heart was like, 200 [beats per minute], ” she said.
Correctly, the ball was deemed out allowing crowd-favourite Hantuchova to progress to the second round in an ultra-competitive top half of the women’s draw.
Earlier in the match, Cibulkova claimed the first set 6-3 on the back of some clean ball striking.
She then drew out to a 2-0 lead at the beginning of the second but Hantuchova regrouped to send it into a deciding set.
The topsy-turvy nature of the match continued throughout the third set until the nail-biting Hawk-Eye challenge on what proved to be the final point of the match.