Five Aussies are looking to qualify for the Australian Open for the first time on a massive day at Melbourne Park, which also includes the draw for the men’s and women’s singles events.

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Destanee Aiava, Kim Birrell and Maddison Inglis have all appeared in the main draw of their home slam before, but only after being given wildcards, while Blake Ellis and Elena Micic have never played at a grand slam – in fact, needing wildcards just to enter qualifying.

But the quintet will be in action on Thursday all trying to win their way into the tournament.

If all five Aussies are successful it would be the best performance from the locals since the Australian Open expanded women’s qualifying to match the men with 16 qualifiers.

Aussies qualifying for the Australian Open (since women’s field expanded to match men’s)

2024: 3 (Omar Jasika, Dane Sweeny, Storm Hunter)

2023: 2 (Max Purcell, Aleks Vukic)

2022: Nil

2021: 1 (Bernard Tomic)

2020: 1 (Max Purcell)

2019: 2 (Thanasi Kokkinakis, Astra Sharma)

Birrell, the No.9 seed and Australia’s top-ranked woman, shapes as the most likely facing Oksana Selekhmeteva in the afternoon on Court 3.

She is preceded by Aiava, a frequent wildcard recipient who is battling No.23 seed Eva Lys for a spot in the main draw.

Aiava, at one point the top-ranked 14-year-old girl’s player in the world, has been open with a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and earlier this week called out online body-shaming trolls.

Pointing out a critic who had questioned her wearing a body-hugging outfit, she tweeted: “Math isn’t mathing, stand on business and don’t be a hypocrite xo”.

She replied to another, who had deleted their post: “good job triggering my ED (eating disorder)”.

Aiava set on Wednesday: “I was (rattled). It’s not nice to see those comments. I don’t really look for them. Sometimes I look my name up just to find photos of my matches and then I see the bad stuff. I’ve been told to bite my tongue but I don’t really like to.”

The fourth match of the day on the biggest active court sees Ellis, the 2016 junior Australian Open doubles champion alongside Alex de Minaur, aiming at his first grand slam appearance in a tough test against No.1 seed Dominik Koepfer.

Fellow wildcard Micic has it even tougher, facing No.6 seed Polina Kudermetova in the fourth match on Court 6 – with the Russian in career-best form after making the final of the Brisbane International, where she took a set off defending Australian Open champ Aryna Sabalenka.

Inglis, 26, has qualified for the three other slams but gone 0-3 at Melbourne Park in her career. She attempts to rectify that in the second match on Court 7 against No.19 seed Julia Riera.

The qualifiers will be dispersed throughout the draw during the announcement on Thursday but without names, the actual players then given their positions randomly once qualifying is complete.

ORDER OF PLAY (QUALIFYING ROUND 3) [Aussies only]

Court 3

Not before 12:30pm

Destanee Aiava (AUS) vs No.23 Eva Lys (GER)

Not before 2pm

No.9 Kim Birrell (AUS) vs Oksana Selekhmeteva

No.1 Dominic Koepfer (GER) vs [WC] Blake Ellis (AUS)

Court 6

Fourth match, with third not before 2pm

No.6 Polina Kudermetova vs [WC] Elena Micic (AUS)

Court 7

Second match after court opens at 11am

Maddison Inglis (AUS) vs No.19 Julia Riera (ARG)

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