Australia may be without a women's singles contender in week two at Melbourne Park this year, but youngster Grace Darcy says a change is coming.
"My name's Grace Darcy and I'm going to win the Australian Open in 2028. I like serving and my back hand is pretty good."
Lofty ambitions for a 10-year-old, but Grace is part of a push by Tennis Australia to produce more female talent.
The peak body for the sport is looking to recruit a Women's Professional Tennis Coordinator to identify new players, and provide strategies to foster their careers.
Former world number eight Alicia Molik says it's vital for the future of Australian women's tennis to bring in more young players.
"It's imperative that we widen the pool, and I think the greater the pool the quicker we can produce our next champion because I think it's important to create a competitive environment."
Sam Stosur was the last Australian woman to win a Grand Slam, at the US Open in 2011.
But Stosur's performance at the first major of this year has prompted questions of retirement.
The prospect, Molik says has exposed a gaping divide between Australia's top tier of female players and those still in development.
"We're in a real transition, there's no point in lying there is a real gap between the top 50 in the world and then our next best and I think we have a really exciting group of juniors coming through."
International recruit Daria Gavrilova kept Australia competitive at the Australian Open, the Russian-born player just narrowly missing out on a berth in the quarterfinals.
But Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley says efforts to foster more home grown female talent will be ramped up with new player pathway strategies.
"This is about taking it to another level, this is not about us having a review and saying we're not going to do enough. I started at this company 10 years ago and I made it very clear that at the beginning when we were investing in girls and boys tennis it was going to be equal"
Currently, Australia has two female players ranked in the top 100, twenty years ago there we had four players and thirty years ago six Australian women were amongst the best in the world.
Tennis Australia's head of Women's Tennis Nicole Pratt says they're aiming to return to those levels.
"There's a 3-5 year plan at the moment where we want 10 unique players inside top 250 and four of those players in the top 100, that's the goal we're trying to achieve within Australian women's tennis at the moment."
And 10-year old tennis player Sasha Djurovic, also intends on being a part of it.
"My first goal is to get into the 50 and then make it down to number one and just have fun, and meet new people as I grow older and do many things."
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