Tennis: NZ wildcard turns up trumps

Marina Erakovic earned a standing ovation after her rollercoaster, three-set victory. Picture / Martin Sykes

Marina Erakovic's professional career is off and running after she made the perfect start on centre court at the Auckland international women's tournament yesterday.

The 16-year-old, handed a wildcard into the main draw at the ASB Classic, repaid organisers' belief in her with a thrilling win over Canadian Marie-Eve Pelletier. She took a near-capacity 3000 crowd along on a rollercoaster, 2h 40m ride before winning 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.

In practical terms, her reward is a last-16 match against dangerous qualifier Janette Husarova of Slovakia today. But on an emotional level, she won over the crowd with her refusal to accept defeat against an opponent who kept hammering away, had openings but could not finish the job.

In the end, Pelletier, troubled by a damaged right ankle at 3-3 in the final set, was teary-eyed and mentally shot. But that should not diminish the unranked Erakovic's achievement against the world No 148. She deserved all the plaudits after getting her first WTA singles victory.

Her coach, former Wimbledon finalist Chris Lewis, was delighted with what he saw, citing her maturity as the most impressive element about her performance.

"She's got a very bright future. To do what she's done in front of a home crowd with high expectations on centre court, it's like being thrown to the lions and she passed with flying colours," he said.

"Based on everything I've seen today I have absolutely no doubt she's got what it takes to have a highly successful professional career."

Erakovic experienced a generous mix of what a game can offer.

She hit some superb strokes, played some smart tactical points; hit a bunch of aces and too many double faults; had the odd jittery moment, found the net when she shouldn't but came through to get a riproaring, standing ovation.

"There were a few moments which let me down but I got through them and moved on," Erakovic said, matter-of-factly.

She had a grip on the first set at 4-2 before dropping four games on the trot.

From 3-0 up in the second set, she was 5-3 down and it looked like curtains for the only New Zealander in the main draw.

In fact, Erakovic suspects that was the turning point.

"I think I started to play a bit better after that. Then I got to the third set and played that really well."

She showed character to pull back that deficit, and when Pelletier slipped up, Erakovic pounced to get to 5-5.

She held a nervy service game, with a stack of deuces, then put the heat on the Canadian, got two set points, netted the first and nailed the second.

In the final set, Erakovic dropped serve in the fifth game, and won it back in the sixth courtesy of a Pelletier double fault.

At 3-3 she then had to wait while Pelletier had treatment for her ankle. She munched on a banana and had a good think.

A few minutes later, having held serve, she broke Pelletier's and was serving for the match. She got to match point, took a couple of deep breaths, Pelletier hit too deep and Erakovic thrust her arms skywards as the crowd rose to her.

She will have tougher matches in the years ahead but in terms of dipping her toes into professional waters at top level, this was a day she will always remember.

Erakovic said there had been moments when she felt she had the winning of the match, "and there were others when I thought, 'what am I doing'."

As for today, she does not know much about Husarova but "I've heard she's a tough competitor".

Just as Husarova will now know that the teenager from Auckland's eastern suburbs is too.

The final word goes to Lewis: "Consider she's 16, had zero experience at this level and you'd never know that if you were judging her just on that match."

Erakovic is third on centre court today after fourth seed Shinobu Asagoe and top seed Amy Frazier have had their games.

After her win yesterday, she asked the crowd to return today.

As if she needed to.

Today's schedule

All courts start at 11am

Court one: 4-S. Asagoe (Japan) v S. Perry (US), followed by 1-A. Frazier (US) v L. Safarova (Czech Republic), followed by WC-M. Erakovic (NZ) v Q-J. Husarova (Slovakia), followed by Q-S. Peer (Israel) v M. Santangelo (Italy), followed by N. Llagostera Vives (Spain) v 2-J. Jankovic (Serbia).

Court four: T. Panova (Russia) v M. Sucha (Czech Republic), followed by K. Srebotnik (Slovenia) v WC-L. Krasnoroutskaya (Russia), followed by 5-M. Bartoli (France) v J. Craybas (US), followed by 1-Asagoe/Srebotnik v Jidkova/T. Perebiynis (Ukraine), followed by Chia-Jung Chuang (Taipei)/R. Fujiwara (Japan) v 4-Husarova/Krasnoroutskaya.

Court six: A. Spears/M. Tu (US) v E. Dominikovic (Australia)/G. Voskoboeva (Russia).