Saville’s injury blow in wildcard playoffs

Daria Gavrilova will battle Olivia Rogowska for a place in the final. Source: CAS Andrew Henshaw / News Limited

TALENTED young player Luke Saville must now rely on the goodwill of tennis selectors to play next month's Australian Open.

A hamstring injury forced the top seed to pull out of Friday's wildcard playoff semi-final against defending champion Jordan Thompson.

Saville has to hope for one of the four discretionary wildcards awarded by Tennis Australia or win three qualifying round matches to get a place in the 128-player main singles draw for the Open at Melbourne Park from January 19-February 1.

The 20-year-old South Australian, who qualified for Wimbledon and reached the second round, had treatment for hamstring soreness during his quarter-final win. And he has decided not to risk further damage that would jeopardy his summer tournament plans.

It's a lucky break for Thompson who won the wildcard playoff 12 months ago. The NSW player is automatically through to a second consecutive playoff final to await the winner of an all-Queensland semi-final between second seed John-Patrick Smith and last year's runner-up Ben Mitchell.

Russian-born Arina Rodionova stayed behind for homework on an outside court at Melbourne Park yesterday after her 6-4 6-3 quarter-final win against Queenslander Olivia Tjandramulia.

Rodionova, who lost to Casey Dellacqua in last year's playoff final, sat with boyfriend, Richmond forward Ty Vickery, to watch the opening games of the last quarter-final between 16-year-olds, Maddison Inglis of WA and Naiktha Bains of Queensland.

"I don't think I've ever seen the girls actually play, so I might watch and see what they're doing a little bit," Rodionova said.

Top seed Olivia Rogowska must temporarily cast aside her friendship with Daria Gavrilova, another Russian-born resident, as they prepare to battle for a place in the final.

The pair were teammates with Bayside Thunder that recently triumphed in the southern conference of the Asia-Pacific tennis league.

Rogowska beat Canberra's Alison Bai 6-4 6-4 to reach the semi-finals and Gavrilova, the third seed, downed Abbie Myers of NSW 6-1 6-2.

Gavrilova, a member of Tennis Australia's squad who hopes to gain citizenship in 2015, is continuing her comeback that she started midyear after a knee reconstruction operation.

The 20-year-old, who reached the 2013 Australian Open second round as a qualifier, lost in three-sets to Rogowska at a tournament in Bendigo two years ago at their only previous meeting.

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