‘Every point was tough to win’: Hon sent packing on a brutal day for Australians
Updated ,first published
Six Australians hit the Melbourne Park courts for singles action on Wednesday, but it was only the country’s best player, Alex de Minaur, who lives to fight another day.
Priscilla Hon followed de Minaur’s match on Rod Laver Arena late in the night session – the Queenslander’s first match exposure to Melbourne Park’s centre court – but she confronted a young gun, American 18-year-old Iva Jovic, who had the game that packed a punch and won 6-1, 6-2.
“She played really well tonight. I felt like every point was tough to win,” said Hon, 27, after she joined Jordan Thompson, Talia Gibson, Storm Hunter, Ajla Tomljanovic as second-round losers.
World No.121 Hon, who qualified for both Wimbledon and US Open last year, said she was “so incredibly grateful” to pick up an Australian Open wildcard.
“I’m glad I got through that first round [but] I wish I could have done more. It is what it is,” she said, following her match.
Earlier on Wednesday, Thompson was striving to reach the Australian Open third round for the first time, on his 13th attempt.
“Let’s break this bloke”: Those were the words of wisdom for the 31-year-old from a punter in the crowd during his second-round match against Nuno Borges.
That’s easy advice to give, but harder to implement as Thompson looked to break new ground.
In the end, the statement rang true, but not for the player they were hoping for, as Thompson suffered a heartbreaking 6-7 (9-11), 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 defeat to Borges in a marathon match that wasn’t short of its ups and downs.
Thompson will have to hope that it’s 14th time lucky if he’s ever going to progress past the second round in Australia.
It wasn’t an easy match for the Australian, especially when he went down a break in the third set after a foot fault, followed by a fault on his second serve.
Thompson sent a ball flying high in frustration, which prompted chair umpire Arnaud Gabas to give Thompson a code violation warning for ball abuse.
During the changeover, Thompson voiced his annoyance with Gabas.
“You understand my frustration, I’ve played for [undecipherable] years and I haven’t foot-faulted once and now today all of a sudden it’s been like five times,” Thompson said.
“Unless I’ve changed something? But I can’t even ask to see it.”
Foot faults cannot be replayed on screen like close line calls can.
“You can review everything else, and then you’ve got something like this, and you can’t even see what’s happened. I mean, the system fails half the time. We had to stop twice the other day for the system. It’s not much to ask for.”
It was a blip that contributed to the overall derailment of the match, following a gutsy first set that Thompson clenched in a tiebreak.
When Borges broke Thompson at 4-4 in the fourth to serve for the set, the Australian threw his racquet in frustration. It just about summed up how the crowd – who had been so buoyed with hope at the start of the match – felt out on ANZ Arena.
The crowd were raucous when Thompson stepped on court, and even during the match, the Aussie supporters descended into chaos, with the combination of booze, sun, and classic Australian tomfoolery making the stadium more like a circus tent than a tennis match at times.
But the stadium was uncharacteristically quiet by the time Borges served for the match.
It was one of four Australian losses by that time before Hon was also eliminated and de Minaur advanced yet again.
Tomljanovic lost her match against Romanian Elena-Gabriela Ruse 6-4, 6-4, not too long after Thompson’s defeat.
Tomljanovic staged a brief comeback early in the second set when she converted her opening break point of the match to go 3-1 up, but a feeble next service game to give the break straight back was the beginning of the end.
Ruse hit double as many winners as Tomljanovic (22-11) and committed three fewer unforced errors, so it was a very victory to book just her second round-of-32 berth at a grand slam.
Tomljanovic has not been to that stage at a major since the 2023 US Open.
The positive is the shoulder injury she appeared to suffer in Adelaide the week before the Australian Open did not seem to impact her Melbourne Park campaign.
Earlier, Diana Shnaider beat Talia Gibson 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, while Storm Hunter lost her match in straight sets to Hailey Baptise
Gibson played a flawless first set where she was the better player on serve, and was striking the ball beautifully. But the match slipped away from her as Shnaider – the more experienced of the two – took control.
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Marc McGowan is a sports reporter for The AgeConnect via X.
Scott Spits is a sports reporter for The AgeConnect via X or email.
Billie Eder is a sports reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.