Bendigo, VIC, 9 January 2020 | Asher Packman

Top seed Patricia Maria Tig survived a scare to overcome Australia’s last remaining hope, Victorian wildcard Jaimee Fourlis, at the Apis Canberra International in Bendigo on Thursday.

Aiming for a quarterfinal berth, the Victorian fell 6-3 3-6 6-0 to the more experienced Romanian.

“She’s a high-quality opponent, she’s been top 100 before. I knew I had to come out firing,” Fourlis, 20, said. “I started off well but then played a couple of bad games and she got on a roll. I was able to get back in the second set and get some momentum, but unfortunately things didn’t go my way in the end.

“I definitely got some confidence winning my first-round match here and hopefully now I can go into Australian Open qualifying with a positive mindset.”

In other women’s matches, Georgian Ekaterine Gorgodze caused the biggest upset of the day, defeating second seed Mandy Minella of Luxembourg in straight sets, 6-0 7-5.

Seeded players, American Sachia Vickery and Kristina Kucova of Slovakia both posted straight sets wins, while Japanese qualifier Chihiro Muramatsu eliminated seventh seed Cristina Bucsa of Spain.  Anna Bondar of Hungary and Poland’s Magdalena Frech posted convincing victories, while Indian Ankita Raina battled for close to three hours to beat American Irina Falconi.

In the men’s ATP Challenger event, remaining Australians Alex Bolt and qualifier Harry Bourchier were both stopped with South Australian Bolt falling to German Dominik Koepfer in three sets and Tasmanian Bourchier going down to Korean Soonwoo Kwon 6-2 6-4 after his exciting win over American ninth seed Marcos Giron on Wednesday.

Top seed and world No.56, Ugo Humbert of France, was defeated in straight sets by fifteenth seed Denis Kudla, 7-6(4) 6-3.  Kudla will now take on sixth seed Jaume Munar in a quarterfinal, the Spaniard winning in straight sets over Swiss Henri Lakksonen.

Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori backed up his second-round victory over Italian Jannik Sinner to defeat No.13 seed Taro Daniel of Japan in straight sets.  The 20-year-old is currently sitting at a career-high ranking of No.121 after claiming four ATP Challenger Tour titles in 2019.

In other men’s results, Russian Evgeny Donskoy was a straight sets winner over lucky loser Zhe Li of china, while fourth and fifth seeds, German Philipp Kohlschreiber and American Steve Johnson also won through with straight sets victories.

Live scores of all Australian Pro Tour events are available through www.tennis.com.au/protour/scores and for a live stream of selected events visit www.tennis.com.au/protour. For updates, follow @oztennisresults on Twitter.

Photo: Ben Southall