Destanee Aiava (Vic) confirmed her reputation as one of the rising stars of Australian tennis by partnering Alicia Smith (Qld) to women\u2019s doubles glory in the Australian Open Play-off.<\/p>\n
Their 7-5 6-3 victory over Naiktha Bains (Qld) and Abbie Myers (NSW) earned the pair a wildcard place in the doubles main-draw at Australian Open 2017.<\/p>\n
The triumph capped a stunning week for 16-year-old Aiava, who had already secured a debut appearance in the women\u2019s Australian Open singles draw courtesy of a 7-5 6-3 victory over Jaimee Fourlis (Vic) in last Saturday\u2019s 18\/u girls\u2019 Australian Championships final.<\/p>\n
That win ensured the 16-year-old will become the first player born this century to play at a Grand Slam when she returns to Melbourne Park in January.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead to January and the Australian Open draw, Aiava said: \u201cI\u2019d like to play Serena, she\u2019s my idol, so that would be a good experience. I\u2019m really excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cIt feels unreal. I\u2019m so excited to have the chance to play both singles and doubles at my favourite Grand Slam \u2013 it hasn\u2019t really sunk in yet.<\/p>\n
It is the first time a doubles play-off has been held during the December Showdown, which sees teams battle it out for a spot at the first Grand Slam event of 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked well together as a team,\u201d Aiava said of her pairing with Smith.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been playing together for quite a while now, so we know each other\u2019s games. We just put that into play and came out with the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith added: \u201cI think (Tennis Australia) giving us the opportunity to show how good we are at doubles is amazing.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t see doubles as a Grand Slam thing, and it doesn\u2019t get broadcast a lot. It\u2019s fun and Des and I love playing together, so I\u2019m just glad we had the opportunity to show what we can do.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a dream since I was five to play in a Grand Slam, so I don\u2019t think it\u2019s actually sunk in at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tennis Australia Head of Women\u2019s Tennis Nicole Pratt has kept a close eye on all the action this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe girls have competed well all week and were rewarded with a big win over the top seeds today,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese wildcards are a great opportunity to give our emerging players a taste of the Grand Slam experience, where they can see first-hand how hard the top players work, and what it means to be a professional.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s likely Destanee will be one of the youngest players in the draw, and that comes with a unique kind of pressure. We\u2019ll work closely with her team to manage both her own expectations and the extra attention that she\u2019ll inevitably attract.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Destanee Aiava (Vic) confirmed her reputation as one of the rising stars of Australian tennis by partnering Alicia Smith (Qld) to women\u2019s doubles glory in the Australian Open Play-off. Their 7-5 6-3 victory over Naiktha Bains (Qld) and Abbie Myers (NSW) earned the pair a wildcard place in the doubles main-draw at Australian Open 2017. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5914,"featured_media":16504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5914"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}