Tennis: Erakovic vows to bounce back quickly

New Zealand tennis number one Marina Erakovic is vowing to come back stronger after a gut wrenching loss on centre court at the French Open.

The 27 year old world number 80 battled for nearly two and a half hours before falling 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to Czech 4th seed Petra Kvitova.

In a match which seesawed throughout with both players converting 6 of 15 break point chances, Erakovic came up just short in first appearance on centre court at a Grand Slam.

"It's funny because it's something I have to experience a little bit more of playing in the big arenas against the top players. I'm not a young bird any more, but I think the more experience I get the better I go and I will continue working hard and try to improve.

Hopefully after having a little sulk I will get up and carry on." Erakovic said.

The reality is it's another tough pill to swallow for Erakovic who has been on the wrong end of too many tight defeats over the past year. This was one of her best match performances in a Grand Slam. Kvitova is one of the best players in the world who some believe is destined to become world number one. The left hander has a devastating forehand, a big serve and moves well. They are weapons that has helped her win Wimbledon twice.

But against Erakovic the Czech was error prone, 47 unforced errors on the official count and many more forced by Erakovic who mixed things up well by taking the pace away from Kvitova at times.

"I did a lot of things right. I served pretty well and had a lot of break point chances. It's difficult to take because I would like to get some of these close matches going my way. I guess in the third set she hit a couple of lines at 4-4 and things could have gone either way. It was a good match overall and I would like to be positive but it's tough as I would have liked to win it."

It was in stark contrast to the 6-4, 6-4 defeat by the Czech in the second round in Paris last year.

"Last year I felt tactically it should have been different and today I felt I played well and I did quite a few things right. In that sense it's very positive and it's also positive that it's my first big centre court match and got into the swing of things pretty quickly. But there's a winner and loser and today I'm a loser so it sucks a bit." Erakovic said.

Erakovic still has the doubles to contemplate playing with Britain's Heather Watson.

The pair open their campaign against third seeds Timea Babos of Hungary and Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic tomorrow.

Two of the three Kiwi players on doubles action bowed out with Artem Sitak the only one to progress.

Sitak and his American partner Nicolas Monroe defeated German Dustin Brown and Austrian Andreas Haider Maurer 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.

But Michael Venus and his Croatian partner Mate Pavic fell 6-2, 6-4 to Pablo Andujar and Olivier Marach and Marcus Daniell and Steve Darcis fell 7-5, 6-1 to the 7th seeds Nenad Zimonjic and Marcin Matkowski.

Matt Brown travelled to Paris with Emirates Airline