It was a great Monday for Australia at the Wimbledon lead-up tournament in Nottingham, with three advancing to the second round.
Talia Gibson and Taylah Preston both advanced with three-set victories at the WTA 250 event, while at the concurrent ATP Challenger event, Christopher O’Connell began with a win.
O’Connell’s 7-6(2) 6-1 win snapped a nine-match losing streak and set a meeting with Brit Jay Clarke, while fellow Aussie Dane Sweeney – sitting at a career-high ranking of 126th – could join him in the second round when he takes on Jacob Fearnley.
AUSSIE WATCH: Hijikata qualifies at Queen’s Club
Gibson, meanwhile, scored her first win of the grasscourt season with a hard-fought 6-3 5-7 7-6(4) triumph over Britain’s Francesca Jones.
Trailing 5-2 in the third set and facing two match points in the ninth game, Gibson powered back to force a tiebreak, which Jones led 3-1 before Gibson staged another comeback.
World No.66 Gibson now takes on Paris 2024 Olympic gold medallist Zheng Qinwen for a place in the quarterfinals.
Preston, meanwhile, staged a brilliant recovery of her own against Anna Blinkova.
Down 3-1 in the third set, the 20-year-old ripped through five consecutive games to complete a 4-6 6-3 6-3 win, her first at tour-level since Australian Open 2026.
The result elevates her to 118th in the WTA live rankings, which would be a career high.
Preston fell in a tight three-set match in the final round of qualifying, yet entered the main draw as a lucky loser following the withdrawal of top seed Iva Jovic.
Her next opponent is still to be determined, but Preston could face fellow Aussie Kimberly Birrell, also a lucky loser who opens against fifth seed Ann Li on Tuesday (UK time).
Maya Joint came extremely close to joining Gibson and Preston in the second round, fighting for three hours and 21 minutes before falling 6-7(8) 7-5 6-4 to Yuliia Starodubtseva.
Meanwhile, Thanasi Kokkinakis has gotten his grasscourt season off to a strong start with his first matches on the surface in two years.
At the new ATP Challenger tournament in Dublin, Kokkinakis won two matches in qualifying to reach the main draw, where he joins Bernard Tomic.
Kokkinakis has drawn Swiss Jerome Kym, while Tomic could face a second-round clash against Grigor Dimitrov, should he get past local wildcard Conor Gannon.
Cruz Hewitt also won a round of qualifying, pushing the 17-year-old’s ATP live ranking inside the top 600.
On Tuesday in London, Alex de Minaur and Rinky Hijikata will play their first-round matches at Queen’s Club, while Alexei Popyrin will be in singles action in Halle.