Having already completed two stints in hotel quarantine, the Shellharbour talent's excitement only grew when the program was scrapped for fully-vaccinated travellers.

Perez jetted into Australia earlier this week, but she's not here for a holiday.

Instead, the tennis player has her eyes firmly set on January's Australian Open.

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A week in NSW with friends and family will be followed by a training camp in Melbourne, Perez's focus on winning a place in the singles draw via qualifying.

"I'm hoping for five good weeks of training before I come home for Christmas," Perez said. "The summer starts at the start of January, I'll be playing a WTA tournament the first week, then the second week I'll be playing qualifying in Melbourne.

"I really believe I can make it through qualifying. This year I made the third round (of qualifying) at the French Open, then qualified at Wimbledon. There's no reason why I can't win three rounds in Melbourne.

"I'll be training here at Melbourne Park, I'm familiar with the surface and the conditions. There's no better place where I'll be more prepared."

Perez enjoyed an eventful and largely successful eight months on the road.

It was a period she qualified for the singles draw at Wimbledon for the first time and made the quarter-finals in the women's doubles at the Tokyo Olympics.

The 26-year-old also reached the quarter-finals of the mixed doubles at the US Open and won a WTA event in Spain. Her time overseas finished at last week's Billie Jean King Cup, where Australia progressed to the semi-finals.

While her singles ranking remains at 195, Perez's doubles ranking is 42 and she is confident her tennis will only continue to improve.

"I feel like this year was one of my best years on tour,'' she said. ''I'm really happy with my game and know what areas I need to work on and the direction I want to take it.

"I think I'm good enough to play at a high level. My game is where I need to be, physically I started to struggle towards the end there. I was playing a lot of tennis and backing up was tough.

"The next step for me is training and playing to make sure I can go week after week. When I find that form and with where my tennis was at, I think I can beat some of those better players."

COVID restrictions and a desire to qualify for the Olympics saw Perez focus much of her attention towards doubles in 2021.

She will partner with Canada's Sharon Fichman during the upcoming summer, however her primary goal for the coming year is to climb inside the top 100 in singles.

Having linked up with coach Maria Koehler, Perez can see the benefits of their partnership and she's looking to use the Australian summer as a springboard for the year ahead.

"I'd love to get my ranking inside the top 100," Perez said. "Being able to play slams and not go through qualifying would be great. Getting deeper into WTA tournaments is a big goal.

"The toughest thing is it's quite different from ITF to WTA. The WTA girls play the big points, there's no cheap points. I can match it with the best girls on the ITF circuit, but it's a different mentality when you get to the WTA tournaments and are getting deeper in the WTAs."

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