Aussie No.1 Kimberly Birrell’s fairytale qualifying run has come to an end in the first round, with a last-gasp opponent swap seemingly too much for the Victorian to overcome as she fell 2-6, 2-6.
Birell had been scheduled to play 13th seed Anna Kalinskaya — and all her training had gone into preparing for the Russian — but the 26-year-old bowed out after being called to the court to begin.
In her place, and with five minutes notice, lucky loser Eva Lys was handed a lifeline.
For Lys, who nearly flew home, it has ended up being a shock $200,000 windfall in Melbourne.
For Birell though, it would be hard not to feel a little peeved; all her training and preparation had gone towards a 13th-seed opponent that threw in the towel with genuinely minutes to spare, leaving the qualifying Aussie to pivot her strategy at the eleventh hour, and with fifty-nine minutes already gone in that hour to boot.
Australian Open commentator Pippa Horn said Kalinskaya’s withdrawal caused “a bit of a disturbance” from Birrell’s side. “Her and her team would’ve very much planned to play Kalinskaya… how do you approach a situation like that?” Horn said.
Lys acknowledged the troubles after her two-set victory too, saying: “Kim is such an amazing person… she was preparing the whole time to play against a different opponent. It wasn’t easy for her.”
Birell did seem genuinely rattled by the swap and never really found her groove.
All in all, it was fairly lopsided, with Birell hitting four winners to Lys’s 20 through 70 minutes.
