New Zealand No.1 Marina Erakovic has progressed to the second round of the Australian Open after a hard-fought victory over French qualifier Irena Pavlovic.
Despite being ranked 157 places higher than her opponent, world No.61 Erakovic needed close to two hours before posting a 7-5 7-6 (7-4) victory.
Erakovic took control of the match with an early break before Pavlovic showed she'd be no pushover with an immediate response.
As both players struggled to hold their serve it was the Kiwi who landed the crucial blow with a break in the 12th game to take the set.
The second set followed a similar patter to the first with Erakovic claiming an early break before Pavlovic again hit back as games then went with serve to force a tiebreaker.
In the tiebreaker, Erakovic used all her experience to comfortable take it 7-4 and set up a second-round showdown with American world No.42 Christina McHale.
It is just the second time in her career that the 23-year-old has reached the second round at Melbourne Park after first doing so in 2009.
Erakovic was pleased to get through the opening clash after admitting to being 'tight' due to nerves after the match.
"Honestly I felt I didn't play very well at all, I don't know what Irena felt but I just felt really tight and I think I just won because I hustled a lot," she said.
"I got a lot of balls back and I tried very hard to play my game and go out and hit the ball but sometimes you're just tight, you want to do well and the body is just not letting you play well."
"It's quite funny, in Auckland I felt I played heaps better and in Hobart I felt I played heaps better and then not so well today but I won so that's sometimes the way tennis goes."
"I'm hitting the ball really well it's just a matter of getting those nerves behind you and going out and just playing more relaxed."
"At the end of the day I'm happy I did it and I won the match."
Erakovic is also hoping for a friendlier schedule for her next match as she had to deal with the constant interruptions of trams and day turning to night out on court 15.
"It was tough, I looked at Court 15 on my badge and I was like okay so that's the last one in the corner there," Erakovic said.
"Little things like that you've just got look at it and say it's something I have to deal with and move on."
"For me the hardest bit was just getting used to the change from daylight to dark and sometimes I didn't really see the ball that well."