The tournament that everyone looks towards at the beginning of each year is the Australian Open, and this year only three New Zealanders competed, as well as Cameron Norrie. It was a poor start for Lulu Sun, eliminated by Danka Kovinić in the first round as the Montenegrin took another step on her long road to recovery from injury, but what was even more worrying was seeing Michael Venus and Nikola Mektić also lose in the first round, the fifth seeds going down to the Portuguese pair of Nuno Borges and Francisco Cabral. It was a dismal start for Norrie as well, losing in four sets to Matteo Berrettini after winning the first.
That left Erin Routliffe to carry the flag on her own until the mixed doubles started, when she would be joined by Venus. Coming in cold after picking up an injury in the WTA Tour Finals two months earlier, she and Gaby Dabrowski were the second seeds. They made hard work of their first three matches, with Dabrowski getting broken in her first service game each time as they went on to lose the first set before winning in three.
They had a much easier quarter-final before going back to the earlier pattern in the semi-final, again losing the first set after Dabrowski got broken. This time, though, they were up against the third seeds, Hsieh Su-wei and Jelena Ostapenko and, although they won the second set, were unable to take the third.
It was a similar story in the mixed doubles, where Routliffe and Venus were also the second seeds. A winning match tie-break, a walkover and another match tie-break got them through to the semi-final, but the Australian wild card pair of Olivia Gadecki and Venus’ former partner John Peers were too strong, winning in straight sets. Gadecki and Peers would go on to win the title over another wild card pair, Kim Birrell and John-Patrick Smith.