Melbourne, Jan 18 (IANS) Day one of the Australian Open 2026 has already found its way to the history books as Elsa Jacquemot defeated Marta Kostyuk in a three-and-a-half-hour match at ANZ Arena, with all three sets decided by tiebreaks.

This is the first occurrence of such an event in a women’s singles match at Melbourne Park since the tournament adopted final-set tiebreaks in 2019.

At three hours and 31 minutes, it became the longest women’s singles match at the event since that format’s introduction, with an almost incredulous final score of 6-7(4), 7-6(4), 7-6[10-7]. The previous record after 2019 was three hours and 20 minutes, set last year by Emma Navarro and Peyton Stearns, whose all-American first-round match ended 6-7(5), 7-6(5), 7-5.

“It was a crazy match. Marta played so good. So I’m very happy to win this match. It is not easy,” Jacquemot told the media at Melbourne Park.

Jacquemot achieved her first top-20 win and her first main-draw victory at the Australian Open.

The 22-year-old saved a match point in the second set and led 6-5 in the decider before Kostyuk seemed to suffer a severe ankle roll, prompting a medical timeout.

Kostyuk, the World No.20 and a finalist at the Brisbane International last week, returned to the match with heavy ankle support but appeared visibly uncomfortable.

The Ukrainian rallied, however, winning the game and forcing a final tiebreak before eventually falling 7-10 to the Frenchwoman.

“It’s not easy because you feel it’s kinda like the end of the match. It was at an important moment [in the match]. I tried to stay as calm as possible… I’m really happy I stayed focused. It’s hard. We played for more than three hours, and [Kostyuk is] a player that really loves to run,” Jacquemot said on the challenge of maintaining focus following the injury delay.

Speaking of her second-round matchup with Yulia Putintseva, she added, “I really need to recover because it was a very long match.”

Day one of the main draw featured the largest day-session crowd in the Grand Slam’s history, with 73,235 fans attending, exceeding the 68,883 who attended on middle Saturday in 2019.

–IANS

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