Today Tamira Paszek will play her seventh tennis match in seven days.
Her first outing at the 2016 ASB Classic was last Saturday, in front of five people. The Austrian had arrived at this tournament with a world ranking of 172. The last time she won more than one match at a WTA level event was September 2012. And now she is in the semifinals, one game away from her fourth career final.
Tennis can often engender great Cinderella stories and Paszek is certainly the tale of this tournament so far.
In a week of surprises, she is an unlikely semifinalist. But it's completely deserved, as the 25-year-old has taken the hard road here. Paszek arrived last week to sign into qualifying, as has been the norm over the past few years, as a series of injuries have seen her ranking plummet - at one point as low as 263.
Rain last Saturday sent the first round of qualifying indoors, with no ticket access for spectators. It meant that Paszek's encounter with Mandy Minella was only watched by their respective coaches and some tournament officials. On Sunday Paszek beat world No85 Monica Puig in three sets, before trumping Japanese world No81 Kurumi Nara on Monday morning. So before she had played a single minute in the tournament proper, Paszek had already spent more than four and a half hours on court.