GALLANT EFFORT NOT ENOUGH FOR CRUZ HEWITT; AUSSIE NO.1 SEED PREVAILS

Cruz Hewitt had a showdown against first-seeded Czech Jan Kumstát, who has started his campaign looking to do one better than his appearance in the Australian Open junior final last year. 

In front of a packed and boisterous Court 3 crowd, Kumstát took the first set comfortably with solid tennis and a cool demeanour. 

The second set saw the Aussie put up a fight to come back from a break down early in the set. He pushed the Czech to a tie-break, going up 3-1. 

The No.1 seed’s strings broke at 6-6, helping the Aussie look at a set point. However, Kumstát was too strong and finished the match off with a backhand return winner down the line, taking the match 6-3, 7-6 (7).  

Aussie top-seed Emerson Jones faced a tough battle against big-hitting American Thea Frodin.

The 16-year-old from the Gold Coast lost the first set in a tight tiebreak 7-3, where both girls broke serve four times each.

Looking to change the momentum, the Aussie took control of the rest of the match. She used controlled aggression and a higher level of consistency to take the next two sets 6-2, 6-3.

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Renee Alame lost a close 6-4, 6-4 contest against 12th seed Czech, Alena Kovackova. Not much separated the two players throughout the match, but the Czech made fewer errors on the pressure points. 

In boys' doubles first-round action, the Aussie tandem of Jake Dembo and Rohan Hazratwala faced off against Japanese duo Hiromasa Koyama and Hyu Kawanishi. 

The Aussies started strong taking the first set 6-2, but were unable to carry the momentum into the second going down 3-6. The tie-break was down to the wire, with the Japanese pair taking it 12 points to 10. 

Jonas Hahn and Ymerali Ibraimi lost against the Italian duo Pierluigi Basile and Jacopo Vasami in yet another tight 6-4, 6-4 contest. 

Daniel Jovanovski and Jerome Estephan lost with a tight 6-4, 6-4 scoreline to Korean Moobeen Kim and Kuan-Shou Chen from Chinese Taipei. 

Alana Subasic paired with Czech Sarah Melany Fajmonova in the junior girls' doubles for a 7-6 (2), 6-1 victory over Israeli Mika Buchnik and American Aspen Schuman. 

Koharu Nishikawa and 16-year-old Ava Beck lost to Bulgarian third seeds Elizara Yaneva and Rositsa Dencheva with a heartbreaking 6-3, 6-2, 11-9 score to the Bulgarians. The Aussies played brilliantly to take the first 6-3, but fell in the second 6-2. Nishikawa and Beck battled hard in the final set tiebreak, but the Bulgarians scraped past with an 11-9 victory. 

Jizelle Sibai and Sarah Mildren faced off against American Maya Iyengar and Yuliya Perapekhina, going down 7-5, 7-5 in a nail-biting two sets. 

Aussie Ty Host, pairing up with America’s Matisse Farzam, faces second seeds Amercian Maxwell Exsted and Kumstát. 

Ashton McLeod and Lachlan McFadzean compete against Sweden’s William Rejchtman Vinciguerra and Italy’s Andrea De Marchi. 

Jones and her British partner Hannah Klugman will face Belgium’s Jeline Vandromme and Slovakia’s Mia Pohánková. 

Subasic and Czech Sarah Melany will take on sixth-seeded Americans Kristina Penickova and Annika Penickova. 

Tomorrow, Ibraimi is the lone Aussie boy in singles action, facing off against Kazakhstan's second-seeded Amir Omarkhanov. 

In the junior girls' singles draw, Jones faces Yuliya Perapekhina and Tahlia Kokkinis faces Japan’s Kanon Sawashiro. 

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