Dokic within reach of Australian Open main draw

Jelena Dokic’s wishes of playing in the main draw of the 2006 Australian Open are fast becoming more and more likely.

Saturday’s win against 16-year-old Queenslander Shayna McDowell (ranked 492) at the Australian Open wildcard play-offs has moved Dokic one step closer to securing a wildcard into the 2006 Australian Open main draw.

In just her second match in Australia for four years, the 349th ranked Dokic disposed of an up-and-coming McDowell 7-6(3) 6-1.

In other action on the second day of the all-Australian wildcard play-off, Trudi Musgrave (497) defeated Christina Horiatopoulos (429) to set-up a semi-final meeting with Dokic, while Cindy Watson (325) and Monique Adamczak (355) had wins over Lisa D’Amelio (527) and Cassandra Barr (515) respectively, to set up a semi-final match of their own.

Even if Dokic was not to win the all-Australian shootout, it is very possible that she may still receive a main draw wildcard from tournament officials.

One of Australia’s top women on the professional tour, Nicole Pratt, has recently expressed that she would be very disappointed if she missed out on a wildcard to accommodate Dokic.

For the first time in eight years, Pratt will also rely on a wildcard from tournament organisers, as her current ranking of 127 is not good enough for direct entry into the main draw.

On Friday, Dokic, a former world number four, passed her first test at Melbourne Park’s wildcard play-off tournament with a 6-2 7-6(6) defeat of Victorian Beti Sekulovski, who is currently ranked five spots higher in the WTA Tour rankings.

In what was her first match since arriving in Australia, Dokic admitted to being nervous.

“I was a little bit nervous,” she said. “There is some things I could improve on but I expected not to play too well in the first match, but I played better than I expected.”

The 22-year-old has also resumed working with her former coach Lesley Bowrey, a former Australian Fed Cup captain.

Bowrey has said that she had agreed to work with Dokic as her coach over the Australian summer, and has also left open the possibility of touring with her as a part-time mentor.

In the men’s play-off, some of the more known names of Australian men’s tennis – Peter Luczak (145), Nathan Healey (241) and the forgotten man of Australian tennis, Todd Reid (386) – suffered early round losses.

Still in the running for an automatic main draw entry into January’s Australian Open are Joseph Sirianni (453), Andrew Coehlo (919), Luke Bourgeois (334) and Marc Kimmich (306).

The Australian Open wildcard playoff is the culmination of the highly-regarded Australian Open Training Camp – a camp where the country’s best players can fine tune their games before the business-end of the Australian tennis season.

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