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It’ll be an all-Aussie battle in the first round of the Australian Open as under-18 champion Jamiee Fourlis takes on Olivia Rogowska. Join The Roar for live scores from around 1pm (AEDT).
Fourlis came away with a wildcard after winning the under-18 championships late last year, but there were plenty of highlights in 2017 for the youngster.
She kicked off the year winning the play-off for a wildcard into the Australian Open and picked up a win in her first grand slam match against Anna Tatishvili. While she was beaten by Svetlana Kuznetsova in the second round, her excellent defence at the baseline kept her in it.
It was that defence which almost saw here upset Caroline Wozniacki in the first round of the French Open. In what would have been an epic boilover, she took he second set, but couldn’t hold onto the momentum.
After three months away from the sport, she made two ITF quarter-finals at the back-end of 2017 and then picked up a first-round win at the Hobart International before going down easily to Heather Watson in the second round.
Rogowska, eight years the senior in this battle is now ranked 165 in the world and has had a reasonably difficult start to 2018.
She made three ITF finals to finish 2017, winning one of them and looked set for a big 2018, but she failed to qualify for the Brisbane International and then went down in three sets in Sydney to Daria Gavrilova.
While she wasn’t expected to win the match in Sydney and didn’t embarrass herself, the loss in Brisbane was a bad one. She was almost ready to crack into the top 100 in the world at the end of 2014, but simply hasn’t kicked on and the loss in Brisbane was another sign of that.
The pair have played twice previously with Rogowska winning both matches on the hard court. Despite that, Fourlis is in much better form right now than she was for either of those previous matches and also has more experience on her side.
Prediction
Fourlis will have taken plenty out of her grand slam appearances last year and while the pressure will be on for her to close this out at any point, she should do so. Fourlis is one for the future and her run could start right here.
Fourlis in three sets.
Be sure to join The Roar for live scores of this first round match from around 1pm (AEDT) or at the completion of the huge first-round match between Kyle Edmund and Kevin Anderson and don’t forget to add a comment in the section below.