ANY doubts as to the mental toughness of Ballarat's Zoe Hives were well and truly put to bed on Monday as she won through her first round of qualifying at the Australian Open, overcoming a mid-match stumble to secure the win.
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Up against the world number 140, French woman Harmony Tan, who last year took all before her with a fourth round run at Wimbledon, Hives battled through in a match of changing momentum to win 6-2 5-7 6-1 in a clash that lasted more than two hours.
It looked as though it would be an easy passage for the 26 year old after she won the first five games of the contest. Despite dropping serve for the first time deep into the set, she was able to steady to win it 6-2.
The second set looked likely to follow the same pattern with Hives out to an early lead, up 3-1 before Tan started to find her rhythm.
Suddenly it was Hives who was struggling on serve, she dropped her serve and it was quickly back on even footing.
At 3-3, Hives staved off a series of break points, to finally close out a 10-minute game, but by then it looked as if momentum had changed.
Tan on the other hand breezed through her service games, dropping just one more point on serve for the rest of the set. The decisive moment came in the 11th game with Tan finally getting the break before closing out the set 7-5.
Throughout the second set, Hives started to miss her shots, ending the set with 22 unforced errors to just five winners. On the other side of the net, Tan, herself had made plenty of errors with 17, but had off-set it with 18 winners.
At the set break, Hives was able to refocus. While the first three games went on serve, it was the fourth game that would prove the key.
Helped by a couple of unforced errors by Tan, Hives finally got a chance to attack on her opponents serve forcing the game to deuce before the Ballarat star unleashed two cracking forehand winners to earn the break.
With momentum back on her side, Hives was able to race through the final three games, two big aces allowed her to get to 4-1 and another break soon came.
In fact, Hives would drop just six more points on the way to score the memorable win, closing out the set 6-1.
In the second round of qualifying, Hives will meet Andorra teenager Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva, ranked 156 in the world, who proved too strong for Sweden's Rebecca Peterson 6-3 6-4.
The left-hander's best result to date came last year at the Korea Open, going down in the quarter final to top seed Jelena Ostapenko. The winner of that clash needs one more to enter the main draw at the Australian Open.
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