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Sara Tomic out of Open wildcard playoff

Sara Tomic has joined her brother Bernard on the sidelines, falling to top seed Arina Rodionova in the Australian Open wildcard playoff at Melbourne Park.

tennis
Sara Tomic bowed out of the first round of the Australian Open wildcard playoff . (AAP)

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Source: AAP


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The Tomics hopes of having a player at the Australian Open have taken another hit with Sara a first round casualty at the Australian Open wildcard playoff.

Troubled older brother Bernard elected not to contest the wildcard tournament at Melbourne Park and will instead enter qualifying in early January.

World No.466 Sara faced a tough battle, drawing top seed Victorian Arina Rodionova and bowed out in a tight contest 7-6 (7-2) 6-4.

The talented Queensland teenager also fell in the first round of the women's doubles on Monday.

Tomic was broken early in the second set and trailed 2-5 but broke back to close to 4-5 only to lose her serve, and the match.

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Ranked world No.120, Rodionova was relieved to advance, saying she wasn't at her best at this time of the year.

"I got the job done," the 27-year-old said.

"It wasn't my best performance obviously but it was enough today and I'm happy to get through.

"We're normally not peaking yet and we're all in similar condition ... you have to be able to win without playing your best."

Rodionova narrowly missed direct qualification into the grand slam and said she spent the last part of the year chasing rankings points to try to crack the top 100.

"Instead of taking a couple of weeks off and having a good training block I just kept playing," she said.

"I went China, Japan, China and then back to Australia for a week and it was a little bit crazy and unnecessary and didn't do me any good.

"I will learn from that and not do the same again."


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