Ellen Perez is confident that her new partnership with Greet Minnen can provide the right tonic for success at this year's Australian Open.
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The Shellharbour talent and Belgium's Minnen will begin their women's doubles campaign at 12.20pm on Wednesday when they face Aussie duo Maddison Inglis and Jaimee Fourtis in Melbourne.
Perez is keen to quickly atone for her disappointing Open singles campaign, which was over before it began. The 26-year-old fell 6-4, 6-0 to American Christina McHale in their qualifier contest last week.
However, Perez remains upbeat about putting up a strong showing in the women's doubles.
"Obviously everything has been a bit crazy and messy here, but I was pretty happy with my pre-season. I started working with a new coach and I was happy with how everything was going. The past few tournaments coming in, I haven't got the results I was after, but I've been putting in a lot of time on the court and doing a lot of practising," she said.
"Greet and I haven't played much together at all, other than the lead-up tournament that we played a week or so ago. But I've played against her in doubles before and I know that she's a really handy doubles player. She's a really nice person on the court, which is a big thing for me, I like to play with someone who I feel comfortable with and have a good time with. She's both of those, so hopefully we can get some good results.
"She has a good serve and she's an aggressive returner, she sets me up with her powerful strokes, and she's quite handy up at the net too. She's pretty well rounded and I think we complement each other well. There's definitely good potential to do well."
However, Perez won't underestimate her first round opponents, Inglis and Fourtis.
"I trained with both of those girls during the pre-season, we did a lot of doubles work together, so we're very familiar with each other - which can be good and bad," she said.
Perez also hopes to play in the Australian Open's mixed doubles, where she is expected to team up with Dutch player Matwé Middelkoop. The format's draw is set to be finalised in the coming days.
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Joshua Bartlett
A sporting fanatic who is keen to promote all codes in the Illawarra and abroad. Mercury's chief football reporter.
A sporting fanatic who is keen to promote all codes in the Illawarra and abroad. Mercury's chief football reporter.
