New Zealand women's tennis No 1 Marina Erakovic has been treated kindly in the draw for the Australian Open starting on Monday.
World No 68 Erakovic, who will be playing in her first Australian Open, will play world No 84 Petra Cetkovska of the Czech Republic in thefirst round.
Both Erakovic and Cetkovska, who have not met before, played in the ASB Classic in Auckland last week.
Erakovic, 20, beat Nuria Llagostera-Vives of Spain in the first round before losing to top seed Elena Dementieva in the second round.
Cetkovska, 23, was beaten in the first round by Shahar Peer of Israel.
Since then Erakovic lost in the first round of the Hobart International to world number 24 Jie Zheng of China 6-1, 4-6, 6-1, and Cetkovska lost in the first round of qualifying at the Sydney International tournament to Vera Dushevina of Russia.
The players followed similar courses last year, both reaching career-high rankings of 49 before slipping in the second half of the year.
It will be the fourth Grand Slam event for Erakovic, who reached the third round of Wimbledon last year, the second round of the French Open and was knocked out in the first round of the US Open.
Cetkovska reached the fourth round of the French Open but was knocked out in the first round of three other Grand Slam events.
Should Erakovic win she will play either 24th seed Sybille Bammer of Austria or world No 59 Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic.
From there, French 16th seed Marion Bartoli would be her toughest possible third round match while top seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia could be the fourth round obstacle.
