Matt Wilansky, ESPN.com 9y

Step in wrong direction for Ivanovic

Tennis

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Former Vice President of the United States Dan Quayle once said if we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure. 

First, that kind of sounds about right, and second, it's possible he was talking about Ana Ivanovic. Because for years, she was bottoming out in major events. She had become, dare we say, irrelevant -- at least in relation to the top-tier stars.  

But last season, something happened. Ivanovic began to manufacture the kind of MVP-type numbers that led her to the French Open title six years ago. After all, who led the WTA Tour with 58 match wins last season? And who won a career-high four titles?

While we're at it, who finally returned to the top five for the first time since 2008? Who qualified for the WTA Championships for the first time since 2008? Who beat Serena Williams here in Australia just one year ago? And who just reached the Brisbane final earlier this season?

If you said Ivanovic, then good on you. The unassailable, quantitative proof was there. The Serb had made tremendous strides in the past year. So with all this momentum and confidence percolating for more than a year, who was possibly going to slow down the rapid cadence the No. 5 seed had built up?

Well, if you said Lucie Hradecka, then good on you. Ranked 142nd in the world and playing in her first Grand Slam main draw since a year ago here, Hradecka ended Ivanovic's run before it ever began, winning 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 in the first round of the first major of the season.

"It's really disappointing," Ivanovic said afterward. "You know, it's probably the worst thing could happen. But still, the year is young and I really have to now sit and work on few things and just maybe try to have a different approach to this kind of event and try to see what was lacking."

Ten double faults likely didn't help Ivanovic on Monday. Upon further review, it absolutely didn't help her.

"In Brisbane, my serve was on such a good level," Ivanovic said. "I really felt like I improved in the offseason. Obviously, today was really not working."

Ivanovic, who called herself a perfectionist after the match, suffered an opening-round Grand Slam loss for the first time since 2011 in Melbourne.

Mixed reviews for Americans

Bethanie Mattek-Sands might want to remember this number: 342.

That's how many days had passed since she last won a main-draw match on the WTA Tour. Mattek-Sands, who underwent hip surgery last April, came into the Australian Open ranked 258th in in the world.

But those details seem trivial now. Mattek-Sands handed opponent Ying-Ying Duan a three-set loss on the opening day in Melbourne. The American served just under 70 percent on her first-serve deliveries.

By all accounts, little was expected from Mattek-Sands. 

And the reality is that there's not much expectation from 22-year-old American Christina McHale, either. She had a nice campaign in 2012, reaching the third round in three majors but since then has fallen out of the top 50.

But McHale played the longest women's match of the opening round, a 3-hour, 9-minute 6-4, 1-6, 12-10 win against Stephanie Foretz. Each player was broken six times in the match.

Alison Riske also played a long opener, but after 2 hours, 10 minutes of back-and-forth battle, she fell to France's Oceane Dodin, who was playing her very first major event.

The American men also had mixed results. Tim Smyczek, who won three qualifying matches just to make the main draw, was a straight-sets winner against Kimmer Coppejans.

Michael Russell put up a good fight against 20th-seeded David Goffin but eventually succumbed in four sets.

Slumping seeds

We're just halfway through the first round of the Australian Open, and already eight women's seeds have been sent home. In order, the fallen seeds are No. 5 Ana Ivanovic, No. 9 Angelique Kerber, No. 16 Lucie Safarova, No. 17 Carla Suarez Navarro, No. 23 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, No. 27 Svetlana Kuznetsova, No. 28 Sabine Lisicki and No. 32 Belinda Bencic.

Some things truly are worth the wait

If Jarmila Gajdosova had her druthers, she'd be crowned Australian Open champion today.

That's how she felt anyway after she beat Alexandra Dulgheru 6-3, 6-4 in the opening round Monday. For 10 consecutive years, Gajdosova had tried and failed to win one match at the Australian Open in front of her home fans. For you doing the match at home, that's a full decade of foibles and despair.

But you know what they say: Try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try and ... try and good things will happen.

"It meant so much to finally me to do it in front of my home crowd," Gajdosova said. "They been cheering for so long and so well it was really important. It meant the world to me. As I said, whatever is going to happen now, I can just forget about that. There is no more 10-year anniversary. I can just play and be better."

For all she finally accomplished, Gajdosova didn't exactly receive any breaks moving forward. Her second-round opponent is No. 3-ranked Simona Halep, last year's French Open finalist.

"So it's just another person on the other side of the net," Gajdosova said. "I'm going to go play the way I played today, the way I played last week, and I will fight and do my best. We'll see who comes on top."

Putting in the OT

Generally speaking, it behooves players to work quickly and efficiently, especially in Melbourne where temperatures easily cross the threshold from acceptable to blistering on any given day.

But some players failed to heed this advice in a big way. Officially, nine competitors went five sets before winning. 

Marinko Matosevic, James Duckworth, Lukas Lacko, Ricardas Berankis, Marcos Baghdatis, Andreas Seppi, Lukas Rosol, Dudi Sela and Aussie Thanasi Kokkinakis all needed five sets to prevail on the opening day.

Kokkinakis stole the show, though, knocking off No. 11 seed Ernests Gulbis 8-6 in the fifth in a match that lasted 4 hours, 8 minutes.

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