Only one Australian will go through

Local derby between players who already met in Adelaide last year, it’s almost the same

Only one qualifying match played by Hijikata, he handled Misolic before benefiting from Arnaldi’s withdrawal. It’s hard to draw conclusions knowing that Misolic on fast hard courts is pretty weak. We can just see that Hijikata finished the year well with a Challenger title and the desire to be ready for the start of this 2026 season. Rinky is therefore one to keep an eye on, he has already played well even if his average level of play is often just average. He now faces another local player he must know perfectly: Walton. He ended the 2025 season poorly, no Challenger success, just tight losses. He disappointed me a bit this season, I thought he could take a small step forward but no, he also remains a player with a middling ceiling and a few flashes of brilliance. The momentum is on Hijikata’s side, but the match-up seems to lean toward Walton: he’s much stronger on his service games, with clean serving and solid baseline play. He doesn’t do anything crazy, but we’ve already seen him perform well on this type of surface and, given the speed, he benefits from it more than Hijikata. He leads 2–0 in the head-to-head with two wins on hard, and he seems to be just a bit too solid against a Hijikata who blows hot and cold and doesn’t earn as many free points behind his serve. But as I said, Hijikata’s momentum is better this time, so maybe he does have what it takes to get the win?