Tennis star reflects on another early Australian Open exit

Another year and another early Australian Open elimination for Samantha Stosur, who hopes she will not be remembered for her poor record at Melbourne Park.

Australian 25th seed Stosur was bundled out in the first round of the season's opening grand slam, beaten 6-4 7-6 (8-6) by Kristyna Pliskova on Monday.

Stosur showed some resilience in the second set, fending off two match points in the tie-break, but the 2011 US Open champion was below her best.

The 31-year-old has never made it beyond the fourth round of the Australian Open since debuting in 2002, with Stosur ousted between the first and second round on eight of the previous 14 occasions.

Asked how she thought she would be remembered when she retires, Stosur joked: "Hopefully not from my Australian Open results.

"I've had a really good career. I've achieved a lot of things. You know, winning a Grand Slam was my dream from when I was eight or nine years old, and I've been able to do that. There's been a lot of good in my career.

"But I'd obviously like to do better here at the Open."

Despite the straight-set defeat, Stosur, who had chances to force a deciding third set, remained relatively upbeat post-match.

"Look, I didn't play bad. I played a decent match. [I] played somebody who was playing well. [I] had a couple of opportunities and didn't take them," she added.

"A straight-set loss, you don't know exactly what that was by reading a scoreboard. It's one of those things.

"I felt pretty good coming into tonight's match. I did everything I thought as best as I could tonight, gave it everything, and unfortunately came up short."