Former world No.1 Simona Halep is finding comfort in a return to familiarity, following a year of momentous change.
The Melbourne Summer Set 1 second seed found it in a Rod Laver Arena rematch on Wednesday night as she held off free-swinging Australian Destanee Aiava 6-4 6-2.
Earlier in the day, former world No.7 Madison Keys made a winning return at qualifier Harriet Dart’s expense, while Aiava’s compatriots Samantha Stosur and Alexei Popyrin had mixed results.
Stosur fell in two tie-break sets to the in-form Zhu Lin, while the 22-year-old Popyrin saw off Italian Stefano Travaglia 7-6(5) 6-3.
For Halep, there was a sense of déjà vu as she hustled to weather the heavy-hitting onslaught from 274th-ranked qualifier Aiava under lights.
The pair had met on the same court in a twilight session in a first-round showdown at Australian Open 2018.
“Last year was very difficult, maybe the toughest in my career, but I'm happy to be back here in Australia,” said Halep, who booked a second-round clash against doubles partner and compatriot Elena-Gabriela Ruse.
“I really have a soft spot in my heart and winning here today, it means a lot and I'm happy to go through.”
A calf injury drew a line through the Romanian’s Roland Garros, Wimbledon and Olympics campaigns last year but following her 30th birthday she managed a runner-up appearance on home soil before she announced her split from long-time coach Darren Cahill.
“I would say that [the time out] helped me to rest a little bit my mind because many years I've been in the top and the pressure was high,” Halep said. “I felt a little bit exhausted.”
Keys makes winning return
A late scratching from last year’s Australian summer of tennis shortly before her scheduled flight to Melbourne, Keys was not taking her trip Down Under for granted in 2022.
She overcame Dart 6-3 7-6(2) to open her Melbourne Summer Set 2 campaign on Wednesday, her first tour match in more than two months.
It was a welcome return after a positive Covid test last January ruled her out of the entire Australian swing.
“At the start, obviously I was a little bit nervous and I feel like [two months is] not that long of a time, but in tennis world it is quite a long time to not play matches, so I was really happy to just quickly get back into it,” Keys told ausopen.com.
“I think Harriet raised her level in the second set so I was just really happy to have a clean match. Some things to work on, but overall pretty solid.”
The now world No.56’s 87-minute victory booked a second-round meeting with third seed Daria Kasatkina and was her first match in Australia since she fell to Maria Sakkari in the third round of Australian Open 2020.
A semifinalist at AO 2015, Keys admitted last year’s positive Covid test result came as a bitter blow, having put in the hard yards in the off-season.
“It definitely hurt. I was pretty devastated when I found out [the positive test result],” Keys said.
“I was really looking forward to it. I had trained all off-season… The biggest thing that made me feel a little bit better was that I didn't also make the entire plane have to quarantine.
“I didn't even know that I had Covid. I found out because I had to get tested for the flight and was completely fine.”
The 26-year-old returned to competition in March and went on to pick up wins over the likes of world No.2 Aryna Sabalenka in Berlin and No.13 Elise Mertens en route to the fourth round at Wimbledon.
But by her own admission, 2021 was not the season the American had hoped for and she was intent on a return to the top 10 this year.
“I was not overly happy with my results last year, but I think a big part of that was because I was so focused on results and those matches where I kind of just let that go and tried to play my best tennis is when I had my best results,” Keys said.
“So I’m really trying to take that into this year and just focus on playing the way that I want to play every single match and knowing that any year that I didn't think was very good by what I wanted, I still had some really great matches.”
Stosur fights hard, but falls short
Ahead of her 20th and final Australian Open singles appearance, Stosur came up narrowly short 7-6(5) 7-6(5) against Zhu in the first round of the Melbourne Summer Set 2.
The 37-year-old former world No.4 held a set point in the opening set and served for the second set at 5-4 only for the in-form world No.114 to reel her in after little more than two hours.
Zhu extended her winning streak to seven matches after she closed out 2021 with her first WTA title in Seoul, having won through qualifying.
She next faces Danish sixth seed Clara Tauson.
Stosur’s compatriots Astra Sharma and her Tokyo Olympics doubles partner Ellen Perez also fell at the first hurdle in the Melbourne Summer Set 2 event on Wednesday.
Fellow Aussie Lizette Cabrera took the opening set but could not capitalise as she fell to Anastasia Potapova in the Summer Set 1 draw.
Russian third seed Veronika Kudermetova narrowly edged out qualifier Viktoria Kuzmova 7-6(4) 7-6(6) in their first-round Melbourne Summer Set 1 clash on Rod Laver Arena.
Thompson advances in men's event
Meanwhile, Jordan Thompson won an all-Australian showdown over Christopher O'Connell 1-6 7-5 6-4 to set up a second-round meeting with Finland’s Emil Ruusuvuori.
Lithuanian qualifier Ricardas Berankis booked a showdown with top seed Rafael Nadal via a 7-5 6-4 victory over American Marcos Giron.