Making her first Grand Slam appearance in 12 months, Emma Raducanu returns to Melbourne for her Australian Open first-round contest with the USA's Shelby Rogers on Show Court 2 on Tuesday.
Both players used protected rankings to earn their tickets to the opening major of the year, although Raducanu is currently 135 places below her upcoming foe in the WTA standings.
Match preview
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Aiming to finally exorcise the injury demons which derailed her 2023 season, former US Open champion and British number one Raducanu will be welcomed back to Melbourne with open arms on Tuesday, having been promoted to the main draw from qualifying due to a spate of withdrawals.
The 21-year-old's protected ranking of 103 meant that she was due to enter the preliminary rounds, but thanks to other players falling victim to injury woes, Raducanu bypassed the qualifying section; a welcome sight for her fans frequently biting their nails over her volatile physical condition.
After suffering back-to-back Australian Open second-round exits last year - losing to future US Open winner Coco Gauff - Raducanu was not present at the French Open, Wimbledon or Flushing Meadows as she recuperated from wrist surgery, which she recently admitted left her fearing for her future in the sport.
However, the 21-year-old - who now sits 296th in the WTA rankings - finally picked up her racquet again for the recent ASB Classic, in which she marked her comeback with a first-round win over Elena-Gabriela Ruse before suffering a third-set collapse against Elina Svitolina in round two.
Raducanu battled her way to a first-set lead over Svitolina and had the edge in the second-set tie-breaker, only for her lack of match fitness to come to the fore as she won just one game in the deciding set, but such a valiant display against a 2023 Wimbledon semi-finalist offers hope of a deep run in Melbourne.
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Aiming to subject Raducanu to her first-ever first-round Australian Open exit is a player 10 years her senior in Rogers, whose outing on Tuesday will mark her eighth main-draw appearance at the opening Grand Slam of the year, but she has only ever made it past the second round on one occasion.
The 31-year-old got as far as round four in 2021 and also has two major quarter-final appearances to her name from the 2016 French Open and 2020 US Open, but she was comfortably defeated by eventual winner Aryna Sabalenka in the second round of last year's Australian Open.
First-round exits at Roland-Garros and SW19 followed for Rogers, who has earned a reputation as a giant-killer on the WTA Tour - Simona Halep, Serena Williams and Ashleigh Barty are among her notable scalps - but she has not competed in a top-level match since losing to Elena Rybakina in her Wimbledon opener.
The current world number 161 - a three-time losing finalist on the WTA Tour - missed the remainder of the 2023 season, including the US Open on home soil, with an abdominal injury, and she did not take part in any warm-up tournaments Down Under either.
Rogers can expect little sympathy from her injury-plagued opponent Raducanu, though - at least while there is a second-round ticket on the line - and either Yafan Wang or 22nd seed Sorana Cirstea will lie in wait for Tuesday's triumphant entrant.
Head To Head
US Open (2021) - Fourth round: Raducanu wins 6-2 6-1
Only once before have Raducanu and Rogers clashed racquets on the WTA Tour, but it was a momentous occasion for the Briton, who marched to an emphatic win over her American counterpart in the fourth round of the US Open.
Rogers had unexpectedly knocked out top seed Barty to set up a fourth-round encounter with qualifier Raducanu, who lost serve straight away in their inaugural contest but responded with an astonishing 11-game winning streak before Rogers managed to delay the inevitable.
While Raducanu missed three match points on serve, Rogers also wasted three more chances to break her then-teenage foe, who took just 66 minutes to storm to victory and a place in the quarter-finals en route to her historic slice of Grand Slam stardom.
We say: Raducanu to win in three sets
After bowing out to Raducanu with a whimper at the 2021 US Open, Rogers conceded that she did not put up much of a fight in a "pretty embarrassing" display, but a much more close-run affair should be on the cards owing to the American's lengthy recuperation period.
Raducanu sparked concern last week when she pulled out of a pair of exhibition matches, but with the Briton seemingly raring to go for Tuesday and giving Svitolina a good run for her money, we have faith in Raducanu - a self-proclaimed hard-court specialist - to harness her enviable power and book her ticket to round two.
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Ben Knapton
