SAME SAD STORY

IT is a familiar tale for Sam Stosur, unfortunately.

But the Gold Coast star yesterday refused to be tainted by her third straight first-round exit at the Australian Open.

“I don’t really think about it,” Stosur said after her 4-6, 7-6, 6-4 loss to Olympic champion Monica Puig, of Puerto Rico.

“I try to not worry about it. I mean, I think everyone else makes a bigger deal about it than what I do personally.

“But, look, I was one point away. I’d be in the second round if I won one more point. Unfortunately that’s the way it goes sometimes.

“I do everything I can to try to have a better result here in Australia. For whatever reason, it just won’t happen for me.

“I’ll come back next year and do it all over again.”

The whispers started the moment Stosur claimed the opening set and only grew louder when the Gold Coaster went up a break in the second.

But Puig would not be denied, erasing a 2-4 deficit to force Stosur into a second-set tie-breaker.

Sporting a wristband emblazoned with “courage” and “kind”, Stosur displayed both traits to earn a match point opportunity in the breaker after trailing 1-4.

With the match one line, Puig forced Stosur to commit two forehand errors which would ultimately bring about the Australian’s undoing.

“I’ve gone over match point about a hundred times already in the last 45 minutes,” Stosur said.

“I think overall I played a pretty good match.

“Again, I was as close as you can get without winning.

“It’s hard to kind of... you don’t want to make more and more out of it.

“If it was literally that difference, then I’d be sitting here probably thinking very differently.”

Stosur will partner retiring Australian Sam Groth in the mixed doubles at Melbourne Park before turning her attention to her – preferred – European clay season.