Appropriately, Belinda Bencic's first Grand Slam victory of her return from maternity leave came against a childhood rival. She ousted No.16 seed Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 7-6(6) in the first round of the Australian Open to notch her first completed win over a Top 30 opponent since defeating Petra Kvitova at Montreal 2023.

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The pair of 27-year-olds first played each other at a French U12 clay-court tournament in 2007, when both were 10 years old -- closer to the age of Bencic's daughter Bella, who was born last April, than to their ages now. They kept pace with each other through their junior years, and both went on to hit the heights of the game as professionals: Ostapenko was the 2017 Roland Garros champion, and Bencic took the gold medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021.

"We know each other very well from the juniors," said Bencic afterwards. "We're both '97. I feel in juniors you always look at your age category. Oh, we're '97, I need to do better than her. Maybe it's like this extra motivation of just someone being your age. But I think at this point no one cares anymore, because we're both old!"

A nailbiting climax to the match saw Ostapenko save five match points as Bencic served at 5-4 in the second set, all with clean winners. The Swiss player had to then save two set points in the ensuing tiebreak before converting her sixth with a service winner. The past 17 years of playing Ostapenko had prepared Bencic well for such fluctuations.

"It's tricky to play her," she said. "Sometimes it feels like a little bit of Russian roulette. Sometimes you're a spectator on your own court. I tried to stay consistent, stay tough in important moments."

Bencic did just that, keeping a cleaner stat sheet of 12 winners to 26 unforced errors compared to Ostapenko's 37 winners and 55 unforced errors. But when she went for her shots, she was able to remind the 1573 Arena crowd of her own vintage form -- particularly her signature backhand down the line.