The adventure of Julia Riera in Australia it came to an end. After her great week in Brisbane, in which she beat Ekaterina Alexandrova (21st in the world) and reached the round of 16, she stretched her great moment in Melbourne, but He ended up missing out on playing the main draw of the Australian Open.
The 21-year-old from Pergamin, 123rd in the world ranking, fell to the American Katie Volynets (103rd) by 3-6, 7-6 (4) y 7-5 in a dramatic match that lasted two hours and 46 minutes. She had just beaten the Canadian Stacey Fung and the French Elsa Jacquemot without giving up sets, but she could not complete the task with her third win in a row.
She had a positive 2023 in which she reached her first WTA semifinals in Rabat, Morocco, won the bronze medal in singles and doubles at the Pan American Games and approached the Top 100. But she was not satisfied with that. By 2024, she dreamed of taking the leap and one of those steps was to reach the main draw of the Grand Slams. For now, just for now, it couldn’t be.
He had a great first set, imposing his game from the baseline and containing his rival’s attacks well, almost without suffering in his service turns. That’s how he took the lead on the scoreboard with the initial 6-3, in 36 minutes.
Then, in the second quarter, the singing was different. Volynets changed his face, put pressure on Riera’s serve, which is not his main virtue, and went up to 5-1. Perhaps as a result of nervousness, he fell into inaccuracies and began to suffer in a match that was in his favor.
It seemed a matter of course that they were going to the third set, but the Argentine tennis player broke free with the disadvantage on the scoreboard, reduced the number of errors and forced a tiebreak. She was just a few points away from achieving the long-awaited goal, but it wasn’t going to be: the American won 7-4. Now, everything was defined in the third.
There, one break after another was the tone at the end of the match, which ended up being decided in favor of the American with a tight 7-5.
Argentines in Melbourne
In the qualy from Australia, Riera was the only one still in the race in the women’s draw and Nadia Podoroska will finally be the only Argentine in the main draw.
Previously, on Tuesday Solana Sierra fell against the French Elsa Jacquemot, whom Riera would later surpass, and on Wednesday Martina Capurro defeated the Ukrainian Yuliia Starodubtseva.
Meanwhile, only three of the twelve national representatives who competed in the men’s qualifying phase are still in the race. Santiago Rodríguez Taverna, who will have to face the Italian Flavio Cobolli, and Camilo Ugo Carabelli, who will go against the Dutch Jesper De Jong.
Francisco Cerúndolo, Tomás Martín Etcheverry, Sebastián Báez, Pedro Cachín, Federico Coria and Facundo Díaz Acosta are waiting in the main draw.