Jordan Thompson, Ajla Tomljanovic, Priscilla Hon, Talia Gibson and Storm Hunter among Australian losers on day four
In the end, that statement seemed true, but not for the player they were hoping for. Thompson suffered a heartbreaking 6-7 (9-11), 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 defeat to Borges in a marathon match of ups and downs.
Thompson will have to hope it’s 14th time lucky if he is to make it past the second round in Australia.
It wasn’t an easy match for the Australian, especially when he took a break in the third set after a foot fault and then made an error on his second serve.
In frustration, Thompson sent a ball flying high, prompting chair referee Arnaud Gabas to issue Thompson with an infraction warning for ball misuse.
During the exchange, Thompson expressed his discomfort with Gabas.
“You understand my disappointment, that’s why I played [undecipherable] I haven’t made a single footfall in years and all of a sudden today it happened five times,” Thompson said.
“Unless I change something? But I can’t even ask to see it.”
Foot faults cannot be replayed on screen like close-line calls.
Thompson in his second round match against Nuno Borges.Credit: Penny Stephens
“You can look at everything else, and then you get something like this, and you can’t even see what happened. So the system fails half the time. We had to stop twice the other day for the system. It’s not something we could ask for too much.”
It was an interruption that contributed to the overall derailment of the match after a gutsy first set in which Thompson prevailed in the tiebreak.
When Borges served for the set, beating Thompson 4-4 in the fourth round, the Australian threw his racket in frustration. That summed up how the fans felt at the ANZ Arena, having been buzzing with hope at the start of the match.
The crowd was very rowdy when Thompson took the field, and even during the match the Australian fans were thrown into chaos by a combination of booze, sun and classic Australian nonsense, making the stadium at times look more like a circus tent than a tennis match.
But the stadium was unusually quiet when Borges served for the match.
Australian Ajla Tomljanovic plays a forehand against Romania’s Elena-Gabriela Ruse.Credit: Getty Images
This was one of Australia’s four defeats to date, before Hon was also eliminated and de Minaur advanced once again.
Tomljanovic lost her match against Romanian Elena-Gabriela Ruse, 6-4, 6-4, shortly after Thompson’s defeat.
Tomljanovic made a brief comeback early in the second set by scoring the first break point of the match for a 3-1 lead, but her next service game was the beginning of the end as she weakly returned the break immediately.
Credit: Matt Golding
Ruse had twice as many wins as Tomljanovic (22-11) and made three fewer unforced errors, so booking his place in the second round of 32 at a grand slam was a major victory.
Tomljanovic hasn’t reached this stage in a major since the 2023 US Open.
On the positive side, the shoulder injury he appeared to have suffered in Adelaide the week before the Australian Open did not affect his Melbourne Park campaign.
Previously, Diana Shnaider defeated Talia Gibson in sets of 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, while Storm Hunter lost in straight sets to Hailey Baptise.
Gibson played a flawless first set where he was the better player on serve and hit the ball beautifully. However, the match slipped away as Shnaider, the more experienced of the two, took control.
Read more about our Australian Open coverage
