Australian Open: Lulu Sun tumbles out in first round, despite 1245-place world rankings gulf

Lulu Sun in defeat to Danka Kovinic in the first round of the Australian Open. Photo / Getty Images

Lulu Sun’s wretched run of form to start 2025 has continued, after the Kiwi was eliminated in the opening round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.

In 88 minutes, Sun was eliminated from the year’s first Grand Slam in straight sets by Montenegro’s Danka Kovinic, going down 6-3, 7-5 on court six.

Following first-round exits at both the ASB Classic and Hobart International, Sun is still without a victory to start the new year, and hasn’t tasted success since August 2024, when she won the semi-final against Ekaterina Alexandrova at the Monterrey Open in Mexico.

Perhaps making Tuesday’s struggles even worse though, was the fact Sun’s ranking of 44th in the world greatly dwarfs her 30-year-old opponent’s 1289th – albeit that number has been heavily impacted by an injury layoff to Kovinic.

Kovinic broke serve three times compared to Sun’s one across the two sets, and sent down four aces to her opponent’s three.

Sun will remain in Melbourne for the women’s doubles, partnered with Hungary’s Fanny Stollar.

However, the Kiwi faces a tall order, and will face the tournament’s top seeds – Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the USA – in the first round on Wednesday.

Despite the significant gulf in world ranking places in her favour, Sun couldn’t assert herself in the opening set.

As the early exchanges went with serve, Kovinic broke Sun to take a 4-2 lead, and held to leave the Kiwi serving to stay in the first set.

And although Sun was able to hold, Kovinic doing the same at the other end gave the Montenegrin the opening set in just half an hour, taking it 6-3.

With her back against the wall, Sun was broken again at the start of the second set, despite saving four break points in doing so, to fall 1-2 behind in the opening stages.

However, starting to find the form that saw a run to the Wimbledon quarter-finals in 2024, Sun immediately broke back to square the ledger, and then survive break point at the other end for a 3-2 advantage.

Two games later, though, Sun missed three attempts at breaking Kovinic to go 5-3 ahead in the second, and as both players held serve, a tiebreak loomed.

But when Sun couldn’t hold at 5-5, Kovinic had the chance to save for the match. In no time, Kovinic raced to 40-0 up for three match points and needed only one to end the Kiwi’s tournament 6-4, 7-5.

Alex Powell is an Online Sports Editor for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016, and previously worked for both Newshub and 1News.