{"id":18554,"date":"2023-05-29T01:23:57","date_gmt":"2023-05-28T17:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/?p=18554"},"modified":"2023-05-29T01:24:25","modified_gmt":"2023-05-28T17:24:25","slug":"hunter-records-major-breakthrough-at-roland-garros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/news\/2023\/05\/29\/hunter-records-major-breakthrough-at-roland-garros","title":{"rendered":"Hunter Records Major Breakthrough at Roland Garros"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Australian qualifier Storm Hunter is through to the second round in the Roland Garros 2023 women’s singles competition. Storm Hunter notched a major milestone on day one, winning her first Grand Slam main-draw singles match.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 28-year-old West Australian recorded her long-awaited breakthrough with a hard-fought 4-6 6-2 6-4 victory against Spain\u2019s Nuria Parrizas Diaz in opening-round action yesterday in Paris.<\/p>\n

World No.204 Hunter stormed home in the two-hour and seven-minute encounter, recovering from a 2-4 deficit in the deciding set and reeling off four consecutive games to secure victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was honestly a great match and I\u2019m just so happy to win my first match in a Slam,\u201d Hunter told\u00a0AAP<\/em>\u00a0after the match. \u201cIt\u2019s really amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the resilient Hunter\u2019s eighth career appearance in a Grand Slam singles main draw. She contested her first as a 19-year-old wildcard at Australian Open 2014, but after several injury setbacks, a disillusioned Hunter decided to stop playing singles at the end of the 2017 season.<\/p>\n

Hunter, encouraged by her improved fitness, began her singles comeback in October 2019, only for the COVID-19 pandemic to delay that dream.<\/p>\n

With less opportunities to rebuild her singles ranking when professional tennis returned, a pragmatic Hunter opted to prioritise doubles.<\/p>\n

The big-hitting left-hander has thrived in doubles, establishing herself as one of the leading players on the WTA Tour. She won the US Open 2022 mixed doubles title and peaked at a career-high ranking of world No.5 earlier this month.<\/p>\n

This success has meant Hunter has had to play a limited singles schedule, but she\u2019s proving in Paris she can match it with the world\u2019s best.<\/p>\n

This is Hunter\u2019s fourth consecutive singles victory on Parisian clay, having already won three qualifying rounds to earn her place in the main draw.<\/p>\n

She becomes the first Australian woman since Sophie Ferguson in 2010 to reach the second round at Roland Garros as a qualifier.<\/p>\n

Hunter\u2019s growing confidence showed in her steely triumph against world No.94 Parribas Diaz. The Aussie qualifier fired 34 winners against the former world No.45, who has twice made third-round runs at the Australian Open.<\/p>\n

Hunter is set to face an even bigger test in the second round, where she\u2019ll play either world No.24 Martina Trevisan, a semifinalist at Roland Garros last year, or former world No.3 Elina Svitolina, who is returning from maternity leave and claimed the WTA 250 title in Strasbourg yesterday.<\/p>\n

RESULT
\n<\/strong>Women\u2019s singles, first round<\/em>
\n[Q] Storm Hunter (AUS)\u00a0<\/strong>d Nuria Parrizas Diaz (ESP) 4-6 6-2 6-4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Australian qualifier Storm Hunter is through to the second round in the Roland Garros 2023 women’s singles competition. Storm Hunter notched a major milestone on day one, winning her first Grand Slam main-draw singles match. The 28-year-old West Australian recorded her long-awaited breakthrough with a hard-fought 4-6 6-2 6-4 victory against Spain\u2019s Nuria Parrizas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6359,"featured_media":18555,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}