Elena Micic’s impressive 2026 season has continued in Athens, where she won the first tour-level match of her burgeoning career.
Having qualified for the main draw of the WTA 250 event, Micic beat Greek wildcard Martha Matoula 7-5 6-3 on Monday in the first round, her third straight win at the venue that hosted the 2004 Olympics.
The Olympic theme continues for Micic when she next faces Chinese superstar Zheng Qinwen, the Paris 2024 gold medallist in women’s singles.
Zheng reached the second round with a 7-5 6-1 win over Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.
Excluding Storm Hunter, whose ranking was much lower as she came back from a year out of the game with an Achilles injury, Micic is the lowest-ranked Australian woman to compete in a tour-level main draw in almost three years. Ellen Perez qualified for the WTA Zhengzhou event in October 2023 when ranked 456th.
Currently world No.310, Micic is projected to soar to a new career-high ranking of 265th.
The 22-year-old is enjoying a rich vein of form, with wins in eight of her past 10 matches and steadily climbing the rankings after being down at No.377 in February.
A semifinal at the Australian Pro Tour tournament in Burnie that week kick-started her rise and last month she reached the biggest final of her career at the World Tennis (formerly ITF) W50 event in Palma del Rio in Spain.
Another highlight was recently reaching the WTA 125 doubles finals in Figueira Da Foz in Portugal with Kristina Mladenovic, the former world No.1 doubles player who triumphed at Wimbledon on the weekend.
The Victorian’s talent was obvious even earlier, when she advanced to the final round of qualifying at Australian Open 2025.
She also won a round in qualifying at AO 2026 as she was cheered on by consultant coach Daria Saville.
The highest-ranked opponent Micic has ever faced was world No.57 Polina Kudermetova in the final round of AO 2025 qualifying.
Yet in terms of stature, Zheng represents the most illustrious opponent of Micic’s career. Zheng, currently ranked 135th after injury battles, has been as high as world No.4 and was runner-up at Australian Open 2024.
They are expected to play on Wednesday in Athens.