PRISCILLA AN UNQUALIFIED SUCCESS

EMERGING Australian Priscilla Hon is waiting to find out if she will score the last Australian Open wildcard after her Adelaide International singles run ended on Thursday.

Hon almost certainly jumped to the front of the wildcard queue with her stunning upset of world No.17 Petra Kvitova in her Adelaide opener on Monday night.

Helping the 23-year-old’s cause was that none of the other contenders – Ellen Perez, Lizette Cabrera and Seone Mendez – were able to win a round in Melbourne this week.

Hon was unable to produce the same serving brilliance but was competitive against dual Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, eventually losing 6-3 7-5.

Her encouraging week coincided with South Australian Thanasi Kokkinakis beating John Millman then Frances Tiafoe to reach his first ATP Tour quarter-final since August 2019.

“Obviously, Azarenka is a great player and I’ve grown up watching her quite a lot,” Hon told said.

“But today I didn’t serve as well as I did the other day (against Kvitova) and that cost me. I was still in it in the second (set) – had my chances – but I couldn’t hold serve at 6-5.

“It’s good to see that my level is there, even without my serve, so that was quite confidence-building for me.”

After falling a set and 2-0 behind, Hon converted her sole break point in the second set to get back on serve and it seemed a repeat of her Kvitova comeback heroics was possible.

But Azarenka never gave Hon another opening.

The young Queenslander produced some inspired play to stave off three break points and lock the set at four-all, but there was no coming back from 0-40 four games later.

Hon said she hoped this week’s results would drive her for the rest of the Australian summer, including securing her an

Open wildcard.