MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Eva Lys was on the physio table at the Australian Open on Tuesday when she was suddenly summoned to the Kia Arena but the German lucky loser shrugged off her panic to advance to the second round with victory over qualifier Kimberly Birrell.
World number 128 Lys replaced Anna Kalinskaya who was a late withdrawal from the draw and proved a worthy replacement for the 13th seeded Russian as she hammered local hope Birrell 6-2 6-2.
“I was panicking a little bit because I didn’t really prepare my drinks,” said Lys, a Ukraine-born 23-year-old.
“I didn’t have match clothes on. So I went to the locker room, got changed straight away, and then they called my name (on court).
“So no warmup, no anything. Maybe that’s the key for next match.”
Lys will play France’s Varvara Gracheva for a place in the third round, which would be new territory for the German at Grand Slams.
“If you are a lucky loser, you don’t expect much,” she said.
“Your tournament is kind of over, but a lot of people around me gave me a lot of hope that there was a possibility for me to get in.
“That’s why I was here the whole day, starting off at 9 a.m. and going back to the hotel at 11 p.m. because you never know if someone is going to pull out.
“I didn’t have time to get nervous. I think that was the thing that really helped me. I had a pretty loose arm.”
Germany-born Birrell, the world number 101, was more rattled by the late change, having done plenty of homework on Kalinskaya.
She struggled to hold back tears during the post-match press conference.
“It did rattle me, unfortunately,” said Birrell.
“I put a lot of hard work and effort into this sport, and then to obviously also play some really good matches and then have a day like today is a hard pill to swallow.”
(This story has been refiled to add a dropped word in paragraph 1)
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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