Torrential rain is poised to wipe out the entire first day of Australian Open qualifying at Melbourne Park, putting tournament organisers under the pump for the second consecutive year.

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Delayed start times were set to affect the 25 Australians vying for spots in the main draw, including Kimberly Birrell, Cruz Hewitt and resurgent 32-year-old Bernard Tomic.

Tomic, who slid to No.825 in the world two years ago, has restored his ranking to 213 and was scheduled to play Slovakian Jozef Kovalik on Tuesday morning.

But the former Wimbledon quarterfinalist and Hewitt, the youngest Australian in the main draw, could be forced to wait for their first-round matches, with Monday’s 64 scheduled matches to be dispersed through the existing schedule.

The indoor courts were kept off limits for qualifying games, as players including Alex de Minaur, Emma Raducanu, Matteo Berrettini and Stefanos Tsitsipas were able to proceed with their training sessions ahead of Sunday’s tournament start.

It is understood those courts could be made available later in the week to cram more qualifying matches in if required, but in 2024 qualifying was completed by the Friday without those measures.

Birrell, who pushed inside the top 100 this week to overtake main draw entrant Olivia Gadecki as Australia’s top-ranked female player, was drawn to face Japanese teenager Sara Saito on Tuesday.

The 26-year-old Queenslander, who reached the third round at Melbourne Park in a breakout 2019 campaign but has only won a single grand slam match since, said she wanted to ride the momentum from a quarter-final appearance at the Brisbane International.

“I’m going to continue to just keep backing myself … the confidence that I’ve gained this week has been unreal,” Birrell said.

“You just can’t replicate that in practice. You need to really prove on the match court that you can do it.

“Having really done that (last) week, I’m going to use that going into next week and continue this momentum hopefully for the whole year.”