Australia's tale of Roland Garros woe has continued with Daria Saville's exit ensuring an opening-round wipeout in the women's singles at the French Open for the first time this century.
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Saville fought valiantly against one of the rising stars of the women's game, 12th seed Jasmine Paolini, but her second-set fightback fell agonisingly short on Monday, interrupted by an hour's rain delay that quite halted her momentum.
The 30-year-old Saville, who'd fought back from 5-1 down in the second to the verge of 5-4 when the rains came, returned after the break only to lose all four points on the Italian's final service game as she succumbed 6-3 6-4 in an hour-and-a-half.
It means that after Ajla Tomljanovic's exit on Sunday at the hands of No.30 seed Dayana Yastremska, there will be no Australian woman in the second round at Roland Garros for the first time since 1997 when Rachel McQuillan and Annabel Ellwood were the lone entrants.
Tomljanovic's defeat had been the prelude to a miserable opening day for the Australian contingent, with Jordan Thompson and Aleksandar Vukic both getting knocked out before Chris O'Connell pulled out from the tournament with a shoulder injury.
But Australia's No.1 Saville wasn't complaining about her loss, bemoaning only that she served so poorly, holding her delivery just once in eight attempts while also gifting nine double faults.
"Obviously, I'm not happy with the way I served, I gave her a lot of free points," said Saville.
"I felt like the whole match was actually a lot closer than maybe the scoreline suggested, with a lot of deuce games and although she was hurting me with her forehand a lot, I still felt on the baseline rallies, we were head-to-head.
"But then I struggled with the serve, and it cost me, especially in the first set."
She felt after pulling back three games in the final set that she was really in with a chance.
"But at 5-4 on that return game, I made four unforced forehand errors, trying to dictate but missing. I'm okay with that, though, because I think I took a chance, but it just didn't work out.
"Maybe I should have played more safe, but I don't think that would have got me anywhere either."
Australian Associated Press
