World No. 79 Mirjana Lucic-Baroni suddenly finds herself in a position that she hasn’t been in for nearly a decade after defeating China’s Qiang Wang in three sets, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, in the first round of the Australian Open.
Lucic-Baroni was simply stellar from center court, having converted six of her seven chances on net points. However, she also lacked the power and tenacity to get rid of her opponent quickly, having punched in just four of her 11 break-point opportunities and having been out-aced by Wang six to two.
Nevertheless, the 34-year-old Croatian has made it to the second round of the Aussie Open for just the second time in her career. But that’s about the only positive takeaway from her progress, as the last time she advanced in Melbourne was back in 1998, all the while failing to escape the opening round of the tournament in seven trips since then.
Beyond that, Lucic-Baroni’s record on the hard court leaves little to be desired as well. She has more losses than wins on the surface in each of the past two seasons with a disappointing combined record of 11-24.
Perhaps still relapsing from her finals loss to Johanna Konta in Sydney earlier this month, Agnieszka Radwanska – similar to Lucic-Baroni before her – needed three sets to dispatch World No. 64 Tsvetana Pironkova from the first round of the Australian Open.
Radwanska got off to a sizzling start, but also suffered a mid-match lull before running away with the victory in the final set with a final result of 6-1, 4-6, 6-1. Capitalizing on Pironkova’s 32 unforced errors and converting eight of her 12 break-point chances truly showed Aga’s experience in closing out matches that she’s expected to win.
The third-best female tennis player in the world should have a better outing against her opponent in the second round this Wednesday. In two lifetime meetings, Radwanska was granted two victories after Lucic-Baroni was forced to retire midway through the match of both encounters and with the Pole having already won the first set convincingly in each of those affairs.
Furthermore, and unlike Lucic-Baroni, some of Radwanska’s best performances have been at the Australian Open. She has finished no worse than a quarterfinal appearance in each of her last six trips to Melbourne, and she’s even won over 75 percent of her matches on hard courts since 2015 with a superb record of 71-23 at that.
Writer’s Prediction
Radwanska (-750) recovers from her slow start with a dominant straight-sets victory.
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