![\"Sloane](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/b510ff3f7fce4b32bc2cb3aaf81bedd1.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBernard Tomic has triumphed in the first round of qualifying for the Australian Open, defeating Bolivian Hugo Dellien in straight sets.<\/p>\n
Dellien was the 25th seed coming into the qualifying but the Australian sailed to victory 6-3, 6-3 at Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n
Tomic looked in control throughout and comfortably moved his way into the second round of qualifying, where he will face off against Arthur Fery of Great Britain.<\/p>\n
In the first set, Tomic broke Dellien in the fourth game to give himself the advantage and he carried on the momentum in his service games that followed.<\/p>\n
He smashed six aces in the opening set and was landing his first serve 78 per cent of the time, constantly keeping the pressure on his opponent.<\/p>\n
In the second set he kept on the front foot, breaking Dellien’s serve twice, the second of which was for the match.<\/p>\n
Losing run ends for Stephens<\/p>\n
Former world number three, Sloane Stephens, has won her first tennis match since July 2024.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sloane Stephens ended a 13-match losing run. (AAP: Albert Perez)<\/p>\n
The American defeated Czech Barbora Palicova 6-1, 7-5 to advance to the second round of the qualifying.<\/p>\n
This victory ended a 13-match losing run for Stephens. Her last win in professional tennis came in the first round of Wimbledon in 2024.<\/p>\n
A US Open winner, Stephens used a protected ranking to enter into the Australian Open qualifying \u2014 the first time she has entered a major in the qualifying rounds since Wimbledon 2012.<\/p>\n
It is a long way to go to match her Australian Open best of a semifinal appearance, but Stephens looked fully recovered from the foot injury that ruled her out for seven months last year.<\/p>\n
Mixed results for Aussies<\/p>\n
Tina Smith won back to back tiebreakers to defeat Canadian Cadence Brace 7-6 (7\/5), 7-6 (8\/6).<\/p>\n
The world number 321 smashed 28 winners over the course of the match, helping her progress to the next stage of qualifying.<\/p>\n
Olivia Gadecki looked strong in her return to Melbourne Park, defeating Aramtxa Rus from the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
The Australian won 6-2, 6-4 and was dominant with her first serve, winning 72 per cent of them.<\/p>\n
Wildcard entrant Lizette Cabrera kept the winning theme going for the Australian women as she defeated Gabriela Knutson in straight sets, 7-5, 6-0.<\/p>\n
In the second set Cabrera looked a class above her opponent, only dropping 11 points in the entire set.<\/p>\n
Fellow wildcard Stefani Webb was beaten in two sets by Poland’s Linda Klimovicova.<\/p>\n
Renee Alame, 16, lost her match against Lichtenstein’s Kathinka Von Deichmann 3-6, 7-5, 6-1.<\/p>\n
In the men’s draw, Dane Sweeny defeated Italian Andrea Pellegrino in three sets, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3.<\/p>\n
It was a gritty qualifying win for the 183-ranked Australian as the match pushed over the two-hour mark.<\/p>\n
He limited his unforced errors to 26, 20 fewer than his opponent.<\/p>\n
Australian wildcard entrant Philip Sekulic impressed but was defeated in his match against Argentinian Marco Trungelliti, 6-2, 6-1, 6-1.<\/p>\n
And Edward Winter was knocked out by Fery in straight sets. The match finished 6-2, 6-4 in just over 90 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bernard Tomic has triumphed in the first round of qualifying for the Australian Open, defeating Bolivian Hugo Dellien…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[21399,140387,140386,58163,101,118,140388,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-366907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-australian-open","tag-barbora-palicova","tag-qualifiers","tag-sloane-stephens","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-tina-smith","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}