There were several great rallies in the first set when Monique Barry and Alicia Smith played Destanee Aiava and Maddison Inglis in the first round of doubles in Sydney this afternoon, but there wasn’t a single individual winner that was worthy of being included in the highlights. Barry and Aiava served first for their respective teams, with all four players safely holding serve the first time round. Barry had a nightmare second game, however, getting broken to love when Inglis followed a winning cross-court forehand volley with two forehand winners. Barry lost her next service game as well, giving away four set points with a double fault. She saved the first with a great serve to Aiava, but dumped a forehand into the net to lose the second. The set had taken 25 minutes.
If the first set had been bad, the second turned into a disaster as Barry and Smith lost the first five games. Inglis hit a beautiful forehand return down the tramlines off Barry in the second of those, and there was a great rally in each of the next three games, but the crunch came when Barry was serving to avoid a bagel. Smith hit a beautiful soft backhand volley to win the first point, and won the game with a forehand volley that she hit into Aiava’s racquet, but that still left Inglis to serve for the match. Barry hit a beautiful forehand volley through the middle of the court to win the second point, but Aiava had an easy forehand to wrap it up after 48 minutes. The final score was 6-3, 6-1.