Lulu Sun loses at Australian Open, but shows promising signs

Lulu continues to battle her way back from her long injury break, but came up against a red hot Danka Kovinic in the first round of the Australian Open on Tuesday.

Kovinic won 6-3 7-5 in a match where there was one break of serve in the opening set, then one each early in the second, before the Montenegrin got another one when Sun was serving at 5-5.

The former world No 46 then served it out for the match. There were wonderful moments in the match for Sun and she was cheered on by a large contingency of New Zealanders, and each time she steps on court she’s continues to build her match sharpness. 

“It was a kind of up and down match and you want to stay more stable than being up and down,” Sun said afterwards. 

“So you can get that consistency instead of just trying to depend on one or two good shots. That would be tricky if you want to win like that.”

Sun has had close losses to Rebecca Marino, Sofia Kenin and now Danka Kovinic this season. She doesn’t believe it’s going to take a big jump to be back to her best, but she does need to sort a couple of things out.

“I feel like these past three matches, the score is close,” she said. 

“It's not quite where I want to be in terms of how I control the ball and how I play my game on a consistent level.”

Sun had a good preseason heading into the ASB Classic In late December, but she feels there’s no substitute for matches and the plan now is to get as many of them as possible.

“You can practice all you want, and you can feel good in the practice, but most important is in the match.

“I still have doubles here. We (Sun and Fanny Stollar) are playing the top seeds (Katerina Siniakova) and it's a tough job.

“But we'll do our best and have fun. You never know and sometimes in doubles you can get your groove back and you can practice certain things. 

“So I'm hoping slowly, but surely, I'm going to get back.”

Court 12 will be the place to be for New Zealand tennis fans on Wednesday.

In the second match of the day Erin Routliffe and Gaby Dabrowski take on the all American team of Danielle Collins an Desirae Krawczyk. That will be followed by Sun’s doubles match.

Michael Venus and Nikola Mektic are expected to kick off their Australian Open campaign on Thursday.